Backup MX Record: Your Disaster Recovery Plan In Case Your Primary Email Server Goes Down For Any Reason
What can happen if the mail server of an organization suddenly goes down? Any business can have potential revenue loss due to a server outage. So what is the right solution for such a situation? A backup MX record can deal with such a case efficiently. There are free backup MX services, like NoIP backup MX or postfix backup MX, that can configure a backup email server to receive and store the emails during an outage until the primary server gets back online.
Fundamentals Of Backup MX Record
MX (Mail Exchanger) can be understood as a type of DNS record. A Domain Name System’s (DNS) preliminary work is to translate the names into IP addresses to make the network communication possible.
The work of a particular MX record is to specify the mail server responsible for administering the emails in the domain. If an organization configures multiple MX records on a DNS server, then each MX record will be assigned a priority level. The email server’s order and the choice will be determined based on the MX record’s given priority. It means that the MX record with low priority will work as a backup MX record if the primary mail server suffers downtime.
How Backup MX Record Works?
The backup MX record comes into play when the primary SMTP server goes offline, and you are unable to receive any incoming emails as a result.
- The organization has to configure a secondary MX record, which will work as the backup MX.
- It has to set up the secondary MX record as a record of lower priority.
- Whenever the primary server becomes inaccessible due to reasons like internet connection outage, patching of the mail server, server reboot, or any other reason, the backup email server will accept and queue the incoming emails on behalf of the primary server.
- When the primary server returns into a normal state, the backup SMTP server will deliver the primary server’s queued emails. And you will not lose any of your important emails.
Any organization serious about email and business continuity must employ a backup MX record in the DNS server zone. It will be yet another helpful tool for the disaster recovery and business continuity plan of the organization. Several providers also offer free backup MX services, which users can opt for and test-and-try before going for the paid ones.
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