[itdiscuss] Email Message Size Limits

Wed Oct 17 23:29:14 EDT 2007

Microsoft Exchange uses a technology called SIS, or Single Instance Storage. The basic premise is that if someone sends an attachment within the exchange organization, it would only be stored once. This does not include changes that are replied though.

With that said, Sharepoint is a great solution and what you described is a good example...getting information in a central place.

Michael Sainz - Sent from Windows Mobile 6!
-----Original Message-----
From: Allen Madding <allenmadding at bellsouth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 7:25 PM
To: IT Discussion Forum <discuss at itdiscuss.org>
Subject: Re: [itdiscuss] Email Message Size Limits

Microsoft's answer to all of this is Sharepoint. 

Picture this, someone sends a user in your organization an email with an attachment. That user then sends it to 15 or 20 other internal users. You now have that attachment (how ever large) stored 15 to 20 independent times in your exchange store. What if that attachment was say 1mb? You now have 20mb of the exchange store consumed by one attachment. What happens when one of those users says "hmm, that is pretty good but let me make a few revisions and then send it out to everyone again"? So they edit the original and send it back to the other 15-20 users. It goes on and on and on like the song that never ends.

Microsoft says what if the initial user instead saved that attachment in sharepoint and then sent out the link to the additional users? After all we all know that Exchange isn't the best file repository system. And if there was a outward facing sharepoint site, when internal staff wanted to send something out that could be too big for our exchange limits or the recieving party's mailbox limits, the internal staff could instead send them a link to the item on the external facing sharepoint site.

As much as I sometimes get frustrated with their sales hype over "marketing's product of the year", I have to admit, they make a lot of sense on this one.

Allen

-------------- Original message from "Dolan, John" <johnd at perimeter.org>: -------------- 

At Perimeter we implemented two solutions two help deal with this issue.  A drop box and a Public folder.

Drop Box - To external users it Is an FTP site which only allows annonymous access.  Anonymous users have write permissions and that is it.  This means users can drop files in, but have no visibility of any files located in the folder.  Internal users can access the drop box via Windows Explorer and all domain users have read/write privileges.

Public folder - To external users this is a virtual directory which allows everyone to read and browse.  It is critical that external users have no write permissions and no script execution permissions etc.  Internal users that need a location to place files to share are given a folder which they have full access to.

Make sense?  Of course the critical piece here is ensuring that you set the permissions correctly

--
John Dolan
Principal Consultant
Viant Solutions
mailto:JohnD at ViantSolutions.com
678.889.6089 x101

From: discuss-bounces at itdiscuss.org on behalf of blloyd at buskercom.com
Sent: Tue 10/16/2007 8:24 PM
To: discuss at itdiscuss.org
Subject: Re: [itdiscuss] Email Message Size Limits

I’d like to hear more about that “drop box” idea.

Bill Lloyd 
IT Manager.l.

5375 Oakbrook Parkway
Norcross, GA 30093
Phone: 770-417-1604
Cell:     404-379-6963
blloyd at buskercom.com
This email and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential and proprietary information.  This information is private and protected by law and, accordingly, if you are not the intended recipient, you are requested to delete this entire communication immediately and are notified that any disclosure, copying or distribution of or taking any action based on this information is prohibited. Emails cannot be guaranteed to be secure or free of errors or viruses.  The sender does not accept any liability or responsibility for any interception, corruption, destruction, loss, late arrival or incompleteness of or tampering or interference with any of the information contained in this email or for its incorrect delivery or non-delivery for whatsoever reason or for its effect on any electronic device of the recipient.

From: discuss-bounces at itdiscuss.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at itdiscuss.org] On Behalf Of Dan Barber
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 4:32 PM
To: IT Discussion Forum
Subject: Re: [itdiscuss] Email Message Size Limits

Generally speaking, yes, large email files will kill your bandwidth. I have seen people email MP3 or WAV files that were hundreds of MBs when I had no size limits on our server. Now, we limit to around what everyone else (Google, Yahoo, etc.) seems to limit to, 20MB. We are creating a public drop box for employees to drop files into that are larger so that people can download them.

DAN BARBER
Network Administrator
Kirk of the Hills, PCA
dbarber at kirkofthehills.org
314.484.6939

From: discuss-bounces at itdiscuss.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at itdiscuss.org] On Behalf Of blloyd at buskercom.com
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2007 1:35 PM
To: discuss at itdiscuss.org
Subject: [itdiscuss] Email Message Size Limits

I have a question about limiting the size of each message.  The trend that I have seen is to limit the size of an individual email to somewhere between 2mb and 10mb.  I’ve always heard that the reason for such limits is primarily to limit security risks.  Can anyone give me good reasons why you should limit message sizes?  I believe there are good reasons, but I’m trying to explain them to the CEO.

Thanks,

Bill Lloyd 
IT Manager

5375 Oakbrook Parkway
Norcross, GA 30093
Phone: 770-417-1604
Cell:     404-379-6963
blloyd at buskercom.com
This email and any accompanying attachments may contain confidential and proprietary information.  This information is private and protected by law and, accordingly, if you are not the intended recipient, you are requested to delete this entire communication immediately and are notified that any disclosure, copying or distribution of or taking any action based on this information is prohibited. Emails cannot be guaranteed to be secure or free of errors or viruses.  The sender does not accept any liability or responsibility for any interception, corruption, destruction, loss, late arrival or incompleteness of or tampering or interference with any of the information contained in this email or for its incorrect delivery or non-delivery for whatsoever reason or for its effect on any electronic device of the recipient.