There’s been a growing trend to move email functionality to cloud providers or shared online services for some years now.

It’s easier than ever these days to have your domain’s mail completely handled by a third-party: you configure the service, set up the MX records and you’re good to go.

Even domains using registrar-provider basic email functionality can be treated as being “in the cloud” using a bit of imagination, since mail for them often ends up on the same system. Some popular mailbox providers also offer addresses on various domains that still end up on the same service.

These cloud providers and shared systems may have a set of limits on incoming mail that apply regardless of the recipient domain. For example, you may find that all mail directed to domains hosted by an ISP counts towards your global messages per hour limit. In that case, it would be useful to define an autotuning functionality that thinks of these domains as unique entities.

With EmailSuccess it is possible to use wildcards when specifying MX record values for a provider’s “dnsnames” configuration. This allows you to catch all domains that are handled by MX records, pointing to the same systems with prefixed customer-specific subdomains.

For instance, to view a typical scenario where an MX wildcard provider would prove useful let’s suppose:

• domain example.com has the following MX record: 10 example-com.mail.protection.outlook.com
• domain foo.example.net has the following MX record: 10 foo-example-net.mail.protection.outlook.com
• domain bar.example.org has the following MX record: 10 bar-example-org.mail.protection.outlook.com

You can create a provider that considers all three domains by adding “*.mail.protection.outlook.com” to the list of dnsnames.

This approach is easier to maintain rather than an explicit list of domains and has the added benefit that it will automatically include new, unheard of domains that happen to match the same MX pattern. Given that the above is a pretty common pattern for cloud services and registrars, you can unleash all the power of autotuning without having to worry about who among your recipients is currently using them.

Follow our blog for more information about the EmailSuccess cluster architecture and design choices we are making to provide our customers with best-in-class, high-availability MTA solutions.

If you’d like to speak with one of our team members about how you can get EmailSuccess, contact us, here.