Business continuity planning is an important part of running an enterprise. You need to set up replacement services for all of your company’s essential functions in anticipation of a possible disaster. One indicator that there are problems with your company is if your email system suddenly becomes unavailable. You don’t want to give customers and suppliers the impression that your enterprise has gone out of business.

Your business continuity plan should cover physical accommodation contingencies as well as a network disaster recovery plan. Unfortunately, you can’t leave the replacement of essential services, such as email until the last minute, which means you need to put in place an email continuity service now before anything goes wrong.

Here is our list of the best email continuity tools:

  • Trustifi Outbound Shield EDITOR’S CHOICE This proxy system is an edge service that channels outgoing emails and stores them. If your main server goes down, users can move up to the Trustifi environment to continue sending and receiving emails. You can aceess a demo.
  • N-able Mail Assure (FREE TRIAL) A cloud-based email management system that includes threat detection and data loss prevention and makes emails instantly available online through a native mail client or a Microsoft 365 integration. Start a 30-day free trial.
  • Proofpoint Essentials Bundles email continuity services with email filtering and archiving.
  • Barracuda Essentials A cloud-based package that includes continuity, archiving, and protection from spam, malicious content, and data theft.
  • modusCloud Cloud-based protection for Microsoft Outlook and Office 365. Includes archiving and email encryption as well as spam, phishing, malware, and link filtering.
  • Hornetsecurity Email Continuity Service A cloud-based email gateway that provides continued email access when the primary email server goes offline.
  • Trend Micro Hosted Email Security A comprehensive cloud-based email security bundle that includes email continuity services.
  • Mimecast Email Continuity A cloud-based continuity service that can cover for a failed email server for seven days.
  • DuoCircle Email Continuity A cloud-based service that will cover for a failed email server for up to 30 days.
  • AppRiver Email Continuity An always-on edge service to cover for email server outages.

Email continuity tools are like insurance policies. They are a business expense that covers you in case things go wrong. If nothing ever goes wrong, it might feel as though you wasted your money. However, you need this “just in case.”

In order to cover all eventualities, you need your email continuity tool to be based off-site. Fortunately, thanks to the Cloud, there is an abundance of remote facilities to choose from. In fact, you may need to spend a lot of time researching the entire market. To cut down the amount of time you need to spend looking into candidates for this important service, we have done all the legwork and created a shortlist.

The best email continuity tools

All of these systems are available as cloud-based services, so you can still keep your business operating even if your premises burn down or get washed away in a flood.

1. Trustifi Outbound Shield (ACCESS DEMO)

Our methodology for selecting an email continuity software 

We reviewed the market for email continuity systems and analyzed tools based on the following criteria:

  • A cloud-based system
  • An edge service that allows email filtering both in and out of the business
  • Strong protection with encryption at rest and in motion
  • User account credentials management ties into corporate access rights management
  • An option to archive emails
  • A free trial or a demo package for a no-risk evaluation opportunity
  • Value for money, represented by a hosted service that provides full email access at a reasonable price

With these selection criteria in mind, we looked for suitable email continuity systems that are easy to set up and don’t require much maintenance but will provide instant email availability to all staff should the main server encounter problems.

Trustifi is an email edge service that acts as a proxy between your email server and the internet. The system includes two modules, Outbound Shield and Inbound Shield. The Outbound Shield system stores copies of all attachments and you can get it to store emails, too.

Key Features:

  • Cloud-based service
  • Stores email copies indefinitely
  • Always available
  • Can be used as an emergency email system

The Outbound Shield package includes a sensitive data scanner. Attachments are categorized when they are uploaded according to sensitive data rules that you set up in the Administrator account. It is also possible to specify a data retention period with an option to never delete files from the store.

The standard package includes 1 GB of cloud storage space for emails and attachments, so you have to divide how to manage that space. If you need to keep large attachments for many years for compliance reporting, then you will need more than that allocated Gigabyte of space. It is possible to request more space for a fee.

The Trustifi system can be used as a backup email server when your main email server goes down. It is also possible for users to access stored attachments, view them, and attach them to new emails sent from within the Trustifi environment.

Trustifi is charged for an annual subscription rate per user. The bundle includes Inbound Shield as well, which blocks phishing emails and identifies links to fake emails within the bodies of emails. You can request a demo to assess the Trustifi service.

Pros:

  • Cloud-based service makes on-boarding easy
  • Can be used as a backup email server
  • Always on and available
  • Data retention period is specifiable
  • Stores attachments separately which can be accessed independently

Cons:

  • 1GB standard cloud storage can quickly be eaten up

2. N-able Mail Assure (FREE TRIAL)

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Trustifi Outbound Shield is our top pick for an email continuity service because it is hosted in the cloud and so will not be knocked out by whatever disaster hits your own email servers. During normal operations, this edge service channels all emails and can be used as a backup system. If your main system goes down, even if you lose your network, your users can access their accounts through any standard Web browser from anywhere. The system also offers a managed file transfer service to reduce the need for email attachments.

Access a demo: https://trustifi.com/demo/

Operating system: Cloud based

Mail Assure is a former product of the SolarWinds MSP division, now owned by N-able. As such, it is aimed at MSPs so they can offer email services to their clients. However, this is a cloud-based system and there is no reason why end clients can’t use the service direct.

Key Features

  • Cloud location
  • Channels incoming and outgoing email
  • Scam and phishing protection
  • Data loss prevention
  • Email constantly available

The email continuity part of the plan is constantly available and will cover for technicians taking the server down for maintenance – it is not just there for times of business-wide catastrophe. The ability to take your main server offline during business hours is a great advantage because it means you don’t have to ask your technical staff to work into the night or at weekends in order to perform upgrades or replacements to your email server software.

The continuity service can cover your lost email servers for up to two weeks at a time. Not only will your business be able to continue to receive emails, but internal and outbound emailing are also facilitated by this utility. The console for the service is available from anywhere via a web browser or mobile app.

Email continuity services are just a part of this package. The Mail Assure system is an edge service that provides all of the email protection systems that you need. As well as continuity, the plan includes automatic email archiving in encrypted cloud storage.

All of your company’s incoming emails will run through the Mail Assure servers before they reach your own email server. This enables the service to filter out spam and malicious content. All outbound emails also pass through Mail Assure, which scans for the disclosure of sensitive data.

The Mail Assure service is a full email security suite. It blocks phishing and impersonation emails and it also implements data loss protection and identifies insider threats. The service can protect cloud-based email servers, such as Office 365 as well as your on-premises servers.

N-able Mail Assure takes very little effort to set up an account and it will channel all of your business emails. The console is available through any standard browser and all users can access their emails from there or through the Microsoft 365 system. The tool also performs security checks, blocking malicious emails from coming in and checking for data theft in outgoing emails.

N-able offers a 30-day free trial of Mail Assure.

  • Based in the cloud, no surprise infrastructure costs

  • Designed for MSPs and multi-tenant use

  • If self-learning, and uses data collected internally to improve threat detection

  • Supports protection for cloud-hosted email servers

  • The platform has many features which will require time to fully explore

N-able Mail Assure Start 30-day FREE Trial

3. Proofpoint Essentials

Proofpoint Essentials is a bundle of email security measures that includes email continuity, email archiving, email server protection and social media protection. This cloud-based service is a good solution for small and middle-sized enterprises.

  • Good for small and mid-sized businesses
  • Email continuity from the cloud
  • Email security
  • Email archiving

Emergency Inboxes are in place as soon as you set up your account with Proofpoint. This means that you are ready for any disaster immediately. In the event of your email server going down, the gateway inbox will just keep trying to forward emails constantly until the email server comes back up and returns an acknowledgment. That process can continue for 30 days and in the meantime, emails are accessible by staff directly from the gateway.

The 30-day coverage for failure is exceptional. Proofpoint Essentials has other outstanding features, which include automatic email archiving. Emails are stored, together with attachments in an encrypted state on cloud servers. The storage period for each email lasts for 10 years.

In addition to these disaster recovery measures, Proofpoint Essentials operates live email security, filtering out spam, malware, imposter attacks, and malicious URLs. Outgoing emails are scanned as part of a data loss prevention strategy.

Proofpoint Essentials is available on a 30-day free trial.

  • Combines email archiving and security into one package

  • Can retain emails for up to 10 years, great for compliance

  • Ideal for small to medium-sized businesses

  • Offers URL validation to help stop phishing attempts

  • Could use more customization options

  • Would like to see an encryption feature added to help companies comply with standards such as HIPAA

4. Barracuda Essentials

Barracuda Essentials is a package of edge services for email systems. The cloud-based front-end is able to hold on to emails for up to 96 hours, should the primary server fail. While the emergency inbox is in operation, employees can still receive and send emails through the browser-based console of the Barracuda service. This service gets set up when you open an account and is automatically available for that point on.

  • 96-hour email retention period
  • Blocks scams and phishing email
  • Email archiving

All inbound and outbound email of the protected business gets routed through the Barracuda servers. The email gateway filters out spam, phishing and imposter attempts, and emails carrying malware and forwards on all legitimate emails to your email server.

The gateway retains all of those legitimate emails for 96 hours, which is how the continuity service can be instantly available – it is built into the email protection service. The administrator has the option of switching the nominated primary server to get the gateway to forward emails to a new email server in a new location, should the premises be destroyed and a new email server put in place elsewhere.

Barracuda Essentials also includes a secure archiving service for all legitimate emails. The emails are encrypted and stored securely on a cloud server. They can be restored to the primary email server individually or in bulk on demand.

You can get a 14-day free trial of Barracuda Essentials.

  • Flexible deployment options include on-premise, cloud, and hybrid cloud configurations

  • Can redirect DDoS attacks away from network infrastructure

  • Includes email encryption for added security

  • Would like to see more data visualization in the interface for NOCs

  • Port mapping feature could be made more user friendly

5. modusCloud

Vircom’s modusCloud is an edge service protection system for email servers. All the protected company’s incoming and outgoing emails pass through the modusCloud servers. This strategy enabled Vircom to integrate an email continuity service into this package.

  • Package of edge services
  • Outage coverage for 90 days
  • Email archiving

The emergency inboxes of the gateway can cover for a primary email server failure for 90 days. All staff will be able to continue to receive and send email through a web browser interface to the modusCloud server. The server can also be accessed through apps for mobile devices.

The continuity service is always on and will automatically detect when your primary server goes down. It will also automatically detect when your email server comes back up again and sync all stored emails.

Other major features of modusCloud are email protection and archiving. The archive is encrypted but instantly available. Companies can even choose to give each email account holder direct access to the archive.

The security features of modusCloud are to block spam, phishing attempts, impersonators, and malware. The system roots out malicious links and scans all images and attachments for malware. It is also possible to use the modusCloud filters to block inappropriate content and examine outgoing email as part of a data loss prevention strategy.

Vircom offers a 30-day free trial of the modusCloud system.

  • Simple interface makes it easy to spot patterns and issues quickly

  • Provides link verification and attachment scanning

  • Offers email archiving alongside email monitoring

  • Protects archives through encryption

  • Can take some time to train the system to reduce false positives

6. Hornetsecurity Email Continuity Service

Hornetsecuirity provides a range of email protection systems, including its Email Continuity Service. This cloud-based service automatically retains all emails for 90 days, so if a failure at the primary server causes past emails to be lost, they can be restored from the Hornetsecurity server.

  • Continuity for outages up to 90 days
  • Automatic failover
  • Email protection and archiving

The stand-in continuity email server kicks in automatically as soon as the primary email server goes down, whether in a planned outage or an unexpected disaster. The Hornetsecurity server also automatically detects when the primary server is back up and will sync all missed emails.

While the primary email server is unavailable, all company employees can access incoming email and send out emails through a web browser that connects to the remote Hortnetsecurity server. The display of emails makes it clear which past emails have already been sent to the primary email server – they are still available in the continuity service’s interface.

Other Hornetsecurity services include email protection and email archiving.

7. Trend Micro Hosted Email Security

  • Operates solely in the cloud, making it easy to scale

  • Archiving is easy to setup and runs passively

  • Archives can be stored and searched through for up to 10 years

  • Can act as an archive or a backup disaster recovery solution

  • Support could use improvement, specifically faster response times

Trend Micro’s Hosted Email Security service is a cloud-based edge service that is available in two editions: Standard and Advanced. The Advanced package includes email continuity services – the Standard package does not.

  • Edge service package
  • Access to emails through browser or mobile app
  • Blocks incoming scams and outgoing data theft

The email continuity system provides a standby email system that gives uninterrupted use of email in the event the primary email server goes down. During that email server downtime, users can access their inboxes directly on the Trend Micro server through a web browser or mobile app. The service will automatically sync the primary server with missed emails when it comes back online.

Other features in the Hosted Email Security package include the scanning of all incoming emails for spam, malware, malicious URLs, infected images and attachments, phishing attempts and impersonator emails. Outgoing email can be scanned as part of a DLP strategy and suspicious activity on an email account can be remediated by account suspension in case of possible insider threats or compromised accounts.

Trend Micro offers Hosted Email Security on a 30-day free trial.

  • Highly scalable cloud-based SaaS

  • Includes email security as a part of their continuity package

  • Supports scanning outgoing messages

  • Not ideal for those looking for strictly just email continuity

8. Mimecast Email Continuity

The Mimecast Email Continuity service is a cloud-based system that can replace an offline email server for up to seven days. The service provides email server activities, communicating directly with all of the email client software operating within the organization. End users will not be able to tell that the primary email server has gone down because the email service will continue as usual.

  • Outage coverage for 7 days
  • Automatic failover
  • Security services

If for some reason, the regular email client used by the business also becomes unavailable, all users can access their accounts on the continuity email server to send and receive emails.

The Mimecast Email Continuity service automatically detects when the primary email server becomes available again and updates with missed emails.

Mimecast also offers email protection services in the form of the Secure Email Gateway. This scans incoming emails and roots out spam, malware, phishing attempts, and impersonations. It is also able to examine outgoing emails as part of a data loss protection strategy.

9. DuoCircle Email Continuity

  • Acts as a full email gateway for completely mail security

  • Uses pattern recognition and behavior analysis to detect unregistered threats

  • Can help identify traffic not using proper DNS security measures (DKIM, SPF, DMARC)

  • Only available as a SaaS

DuoCircle Email Continuity can stand in for a damaged primary email server for up to 30 days. It is also able to provide email services if the email server is taken offline for a planned outage.

  • Coverage for up to 90 days
  • Spam filter option
  • Updates main email server

Users are able to send and receive emails on the corporate domain through a web browser client that connects to the continuity server. Received emails are queued on the DuoCircle server and automatically synced to the primary email server when it returns to service.

This continuity service is a cloud-based edge service and it is available in two editions. It can be subscribed to as a standalone package or combined with a spam filter.

10. AppRiver Email Continuity

  • Can provide continuity for up to 90 days during an outage

  • Offers end-user access via web browser portal

  • Offers a spam filter as an add-on

  • Only comes in two packages

The AppRiver Email Continuity system is an online edge service that can cover for primary email servers while they are down for maintenance or when they unexpectedly get knocked out. When an outage occurs, users can access their email accounts through Outlook.com, supplied by the continuity email server.

  • Integrates with Outlook.com
  • Spam phishing, and malware blocks
  • Backs up emails for 30 days

Not only are they able to continue to send and receive emails, but they can also access their received emails for the past 30 days. The AppRiver service will continue to buffer emails until the main email server comes back online, at which point it will transfer over all missed emails.

The continuity service is always on and includes a spam, phishing, and malware filter. AppRiver offers the email continuity service on a free trial.

  • Acts as an online edge service

  • Can kick in immediately during an outage

  • Offers malware and phishing protection

  • Better suited for smaller businesses

Choose an email continuity solution

There are many competent email continuity solutions on the market, but now you can narrow your search to ten of them. Take advantage of the trials that many of these services offer in order to decide on the right email continuity system for your business.