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Hosted Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes



Service Announcement


We are delighted to announce that Hosted Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes have now been formally added to our Service Catalogue. If you would like to purchase the service or need support on it, please contact us in the normal way.

Service Name

Hosted Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes

Service Dates

This service was added to our service catalogue on 1st February 2008.

Service Description

Hosted Exchange Mailboxes deliver business class email hosting. Our packages include up to 250GB mailbox storage on Exchange 2016 – we’re told we supply the biggest mailbox quota in the UK! The mailboxes sync seamlessly with smartphones, can be connected with Outlook (or use the free Outlook Web App) and as you might expect the sharing features are robust. The service now also includes company wide signatures at no extra cost.

Service Mandate

This service was initially introduced to support business that increasingly wanted to take their email hosting off their site and into the cloud. This sounds strange now but back in the early 2000’s businesses still managed email on premises, which caused pain for remote workers. Now, we continue to offer the service due to the reliability of the platform, the continued use of Outlook by most business customers and to offer a solution which provides a Microsoft platform that is not hosted by Microsoft.


Service Options


Our Hosted Exchange Mailboxes come in just a few options. The basic mailboxes are suitable for most customers though some customers like the extra layer of email security and archiving that the more expensive packages offer:

Exchange Mailbox

  • 1GB to 250GB adjustable mailbox size (default 50GB) for Exchange 2016.
  • Data stored in the UK
  • Mailbox Sharing Features
  • Microsoft Outlook / Smartphone Sync Features Included
  • Microsoft Outlook Web App Included
  • Email Signature Option Included

Exchange Secure Mailbox + 1 Year Archive

  • All Exchange Mailbox Feature
  • Additional Email Security
  • One Year Email Archive Service
  • DropSuite Hosted Exchange Backup

Exchange Secure Mailbox + 10 Year Archive

  • All Exchange Mailbox Feature
  • Additional Email Security
  • Ten Year Email Archive Service
  • DropSuite Hosted Exchange Backup

Each of these packages also include an Outlook option is ideal for customer that want to maintain a licenced version of Microsoft Outlook but do not wish to pay for the rest of the Microsoft Office 365 suite. In these situation we encourage use of LibreOffice and other open source applications.


Service Pricing


Hosted Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Pricing

The table below shows the prices we charge per calendar month for our Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes.
Service CodeMailbox Type£ Price Per Mailbox Per Month
HEX-STDExchange Mailbox£ 9.95
HEX-STD-OLExchange Mailbox with Outlook£ 11.25
HEX-SEC1Exchange Secure Mailbox + 1 Year Archive£ 11.25
HEX-SEC1-OLExchange Secure Mailbox + 1 Yr Archive & Outlook£12.25
HEX-SEC10Exchange Secure Mailbox + 10 Yr Archive£12.25
HEX-SEC10-OLExchange Secure Mailbox + 10 Yr Archive & Outlook£ 13.95

Service Notes for Customers


Basic Spam Protection Included

The basic level of antispam protection for these mailboxes is to detect spam email and do one of the following:

  • Delete Spam – Emails considered spam are deleted and not delivered to the email mailbox.
  • Warn In Subject – Emails considered spam are delivered to the email mailbox but have the word **SPAM** added to the subject line. (This is the default and recommended setting)
  • Ignore Spam – Emails considered spam are delivered to the email mailbox as normal and no action is taken.

This is not particularly sophisticated but it does show us that with the default setting emails will still be delivered. In this way you will not “lose” any genuine emails as a result of the filter but you can take extra care when opening them.

Additional Email Security & Archiving Option

Protect your users from unwanted spam and malicious messages with our cost-effective Email Security & Archiving Option. With no hardware costs and an easy setup method you’ll benefit from these more sophisticated features:

  • 1 Year or 10 Year Email Archiving Service
  • Spam Levels of Ultra Light, Light, Medium and Severe, which describes how strong the filtering is.
  • Whitelisting – We can add a domain or email address so emails from that sender are never treated as spam.
  • Blacklisting – We can add a domain or email address so emails from that sender are always treated as spam.
  • Reporting – An email report is available if you require a regular update of the activity within your account. This report will be emailed to your inbox at a time, period and frequency of your choice and contain all inbound and outbound email listing, including spam and viruses, allowing you to check the performance of Email Security on your account.

Dropsuite Hosted Exchange Backup Option

With more than 70% of cyber-attacks targeting small businesses, it’s easy to see why backing up email is critical for anyone, no matter the business size. Hosted Exchange Backup from Dropsuite (included on some packages) is a powerful cloud-based SaaS solution featuring automated, set-and-forget backup and one-click restore for our Hosted Exchange 2016 platform. Benefit from advanced search and discover mechanics to easily locate an email, identify hidden threats with analytical tools, and ensure customer data remains secure with 256-bit AES encryption in transit and at rest. Specifically, th4e features include:

  • Granular changed file backups of email, contacts, tasks, calendar, notes and public folders
  • One-click restore in an easy-to-use administration portal
  • Unlimited storage, backs up data every two hours
  • Advanced search and eDiscovery to locate emails by name, date, keyword, etc
  • Insight Email Analytics to uncover hidden email threats
  • GDPR and HIPAA compliant features

Exchange 2013 End of Life

Please note that some Exchange 2013 mailboxes on our VUZION platform are now end of life. Exchange 2013 mailboxes on our GIACOM platform continue to be supported though do not have the same features as the Exchange 2016 mailboxes described above. We will continue to offer Exchange 2013 mailboxes only for existing Exchange 2013 users. Other customers wishing to move to Exchange will be placed on the Exchange 2016 platform.

Exchange 2019 is Coming!

As per a recent post here, Exchange 2019 is coming. More details to follow.


User Documentation and Links


Customer Support

For support on this service please contact us directly.

Setting up Hosted Exchange on an iPhone

Please see this separate article: Setting up the Hosted Exchange on an iPhone.

DNS Record for Giacom Hosted Exchange 2016

This is the DNS record you need to make your Hosted Exchange 2016 work. Please DO A BACKUP of your DNS record before making any changes. A screenshot will do though a copy and paste is better if it is particularly complex.

Mail Exchanger Records (MX Record)

Add all of these MX records and then delete all existing MX records:

inboundcluster1.giacomcp.com (Priority 10)
inboundcluster2.giacomcp.com (Priority 10)
inboundcluster3.giacomcp.com (Priority 20)
inboundcluster4.giacomcp.com (Priority 20)

Autodiscover Record (CNAME Record)

Remove any existing autodiscover record and then add this one. Replace yourdomainname.com with your domain name.

autodiscover.yourdomainname.com to autodiscover.giacomcp.com

Webmail Record (CNAME Record)

This is an optional record. Replace yourdomainname.com with your domain name and then you can access webmail from you own domain!

webmail.yourdomainname.com to webmailrd.giacomcp.com

SPF Record (TXT Record)

Replace the existing SPF record with this one, or adjust yours to accommodate other services that send mail from your domain.

v=spf1 include:spf.giacomcp.com -all

SMTP Server Settings

The settings are required for mail-enabled devices and applications e.g. CRM, networked scanners, printers, multi-function devices (MFD), photocopiers, etc.

SMTP Server = smtp.giacomcp.com
SMTP Port = 25
SMTP Username = Full email address
SMTP Password = Email address password
SMTP Authentication Required = YES
SMTP Authentication Type = STARTTLS

WebMail Link

The link for webmail depends upon whether you are hosted on our suppliers Exchange 2013 or Exchange 2016 servers.

Exchange 2013 Customers – https://cas.cloudplatform1.com/owa

Exchange 2016 Customers – https://webmail.giacomcp.com

In either case we can set up a DNS record for you this so this could be something like https://webmail.yourdomain.com

This page was last updated 5th August 2021