Cemaphore Systems' MailShadow 2.0

One of my favorite things to do at a trade show or conference is to visit the exhibits area. Usually to look for interesting software or things I have wanted to learn about. And, of course, to troll for some swag.

At Exchange Connections in San Diego, I came across a vendor called Cemaphore Systems that has a product called MailShadow. IMHO, this definitely wins "best of show". This is a mailbox replication / sychronization system. While the software is not yet released, it is designed to create a backup mailbox for a user on a remote server, then keep that mailbox synchronized and up-to-date with the original mailbox. All changes are sychronizes (new messages, marking messages as read, deletions, calendar changes, contact changes, etc...) If there is ever a situation where the source mailbox fails, this system handles the updates the the Active Directory that are necessary to add the original mailboxes' SMTP addresses to the backup mailbox. The software can also assist in switching over the Outlook client.

I have a number of customers that will think this is very cool and worthy of consideration. If you are looking for a solution that will keep a backup mailbox for your VIP or critical mailboxes, then this is a good solution to look at.