Sensor Planning

A number of considerations determine how your Sensor will be installed and configured, including

  • Mail infrastructure
  • Hosted environment
  • Deployment

Mail Infrastructure

Your mail infrastructure can help determine the Sensor installation type. A few fundamental questions can help you determine your installation type.

Where is MX delivery?

The MX record for your organization is the publicly-facing mail exchange record for your domain(s). The MX record may be pointing to:

  • SEG - a Secure Email Gateway, such as a Cisco ESA
  • Office 365 - a hosted solution from Microsoft
  • Google - a hosted solution from Google

What is the first inbound email platform hop?

Some customers have a “tiered” environment, where an internal “hop” routes email from the address of the MX record environment to a second gateway. For example, this “next hop” may be:

  • Google (G Suite)
  • Office 365 (O365)
  • Exchange on-premises (on-prem)
  • Conditionally at one of multiple sites, each with Exchange on-prem

Where is mailbox delivery for all user mailboxes?

If mailbox delivery (where end-user mailboxes are store) may entail yet another “hop.” For example, the answer to this question may be:

  • The same environment as the first email platform hop (question 2 above)
  • Across a hybrid environment (either Office 365 or Exchange on-prem)
  • It depends on which mailbox (hybrid with partial mailbox migration)

Some customers have hybrid environments where some mailboxes are being transitioned from on-premises environments to hosted environments.

Hosted Environment

Additionally, if your environment is hosted in G Suite or Office 365, these questions will help determine your sensor installation strategy:

Is this a hybrid environment with both Office 365 and Exchange on-premises?

Hybrid environments allow migration of user mailboxes from Exchange on-premises to Office 365

If so, what is the current state of user mailbox migration to Office 365?

The mailbox migration may have 3 phases and associated timelines

  • Pre-migration – all mailboxes are still on Exchange on-prem
  • Partial-migration – some mailboxes moved to O365, some still on Exchange on-prem
  • Post-migration – all of the mailboxes are on O365

Knowing when the client will have all user mailboxes on Office 365 is key to:

  • Maximizing your ability to use all Cloud Email Protection features as soon as possible.
  • Minimizing change requests and associated risk with transitioning your installation.