EXA networks and partners

[Oaktech]

Does anyone else have problems getting information out of EXA and it's resellers?

 

It would appear that our federated school has it's DNS and .sch.uk address registered and managed (but not hosted) by EXA through a reseller - spire technologies.

 

2 things are in play here...

 

The first thing is an invoice which is apparently for our domain renewal - despite .sch.uk not being subject to renewal.

 

We are also apparently paying for something called ESA and for DNS management although no-one seems to be able to give me any sort of breakdown as to why we are paying for them and how much each item is costing, which immediately makes me suspicious that someone is trying it on.

 

Secondly EXA's DNS print outs (apparently they can't export a zone file at the moment?) don't make sense as there are external services which are in and working which simply don't appear in the DNS screenshots?

 

It's also taken from 9am to 15:15 and 3 phone calls to get a screenshot of the DNS, which is pretty poor service in my opinion.

 

Anyone else having this sort of grief with them?

[soveryapt]

I've found Exa to be OK through the reseller BlueOrange that I use for them.

 

Personally, if you need control of the domain then get the school to draft a letter asking for your email address to be added to the admin contact for the domain and have it addressed to Nominet. When they have done this, scan and email the letter to Nominet and they will make the changes for you which will give you access to change details on Nominet.

 

For £10+VAT you can then change the registra back to Nominet if you wish (or some other provider) and then use their facilities to operate the domain and you won't get bothered.

 

Now I know EXA do sometimes charge a fee for the config a for O365 or GApps to make sure settings are kept up to date, so whilst the domain is free, they charge for that service. Of course if you move the domain from them, be sure to get all the various DNS settings first using something like DNS Stuff to get a print out.

 

I've moved a couple from EXA this way when I've taken control of their web services and the schools didn't even notice the switch (so long as you get the new DNS set up first).

 

Hope that helps

Andy

[DJ-1701]

Strange, EXA look after an manage the DNS hosting and domain registration for the Primary I look after. I have had an of issue with changing the address associated with the domain (one of the staff responded that I needed to contact Nominet directly, which wasn't the case), but other than that they have been fine. To my knowledge the sch.uk isn't being charged for, and the school usually questions if we need things if they are not sure.

 

What registrar is the Domain tag with? If it's EXA like mine, then I would have though Exa should be dealing with it direct.

Edited March 14, 2016 by DJ-1701

[EXA_Mark]

Does anyone else have problems getting information out of EXA and it's resellers?

 

It would appear that our federated school has it's DNS and .sch.uk address registered and managed (but not hosted) by EXA through a reseller - spire technologies.

 

2 things are in play here...

 

The first thing is an invoice which is apparently for our domain renewal - despite .sch.uk not being subject to renewal.

 

We are also apparently paying for something called ESA and for DNS management although no-one seems to be able to give me any sort of breakdown as to why we are paying for them and how much each item is costing, which immediately makes me suspicious that someone is trying it on.

 

Secondly EXA's DNS print outs (apparently they can't export a zone file at the moment?) don't make sense as there are external services which are in and working which simply don't appear in the DNS screenshots?

 

It's also taken from 9am to 15:15 and 3 phone calls to get a screenshot of the DNS, which is pretty poor service in my opinion.

 

Anyone else having this sort of grief with them?

 

Morning Oaktech,

 

You’ve raised a couple of points here which I will do my best to try and answer.

 

Firstly, regarding receiving information from Exa and it’s partners/resellers. If you are a direct customer of Exa’s then you can contact us directly, by phone or email anytime for any information relating to your account. If you have purchased through a partner or reseller then you are still welcome to contact us for general support information, but anything financial, such as invoice queries, you would have to speak to the company you purchased our services through, as we would not be able to answer or comment on these, or give you copies of invoices for confidential reasons, in the same way we would not give out information or copies of our direct customers invoices directly to anyone else.

 

The first query I can see from yourself, via our reseller was on the 2nd March. This was answered directly to the partner, who raised a query on what was covered by the domain hosting charge (which I will cover more later). This was responded to in just over an hour (which to be fair is longer than we normally take).

I understand from a subsequent email the following day (3rd March), a little more clarification was requested by the partner (this was answered within a few minutes of the email arriving) and then in turn the partner had contacted yourself or your school, and that they explained what the service covered, but invited you to contact us directly if you needed any further clarification.

 

I cannot see any further contact until yesterday 14th March when we were asked to contact a specific person at the school (not naming the person here, in case it is not you) at 09:43.

 

Several calls were made to the school directly, as we had only been given a mobile phone number, which was not able to be verified as a genuine contact at the school, and again, as before, we have to ensure that we are speaking to the right person before giving out any confidential information, and as this school was purchasing our services through a reseller we did not have any direct contact information at the school. Later in the day we spoke with another person in the school (the school business manager) and the information was sent to them via email.

 

I cannot comment why we could not export a zone file yesterday as this is something we can and do supply on request. I will look into why we could not do this yesterday.

 

So yes this did take a little longer than normal, one hour on the first occasion on the 2nd March and a few minutes on the 3rd March, and then about four hours yesterday, but as explained, that was due to the nature of us having to speak directly to the school. I am really sorry if this caused any inconvenience.

 

Secondly you brought up the matter of cost.

 

On our domain hosting service we cover and offer a range of services. Firstly, the cost of the actual domains as charged by the registrar (if there is a charge).

Secondly, we provide a range of backend tools such as ESA (Email Self Administration), which as you said is a web based portal for providing easy maintenance to things such as creation of user accounts/passwords, alias’s, mail redirection, spam/bounce level filter settings and a lot more; and our control panel for detailed DNS management (including getting the DNS records you requested).

Thirdly we provide then other services such as anti-virus and spam filtering. Finally we also support protocols such as IMAP, which stores a copy of your email on our servers, whilst allowing you to download a local copy to as many devices as you need.

 

We allow for an unlimited amount of user accounts and all of the above, and for that we make a charge of £100 per year, which we think is pretty good value.

Of course if you don’t use any of those services at all, then it’s not, and you would be better having simple domain redirection done by a company who specialise in just doing domain hosting (and tend to be cheaper too), such as 123-Reg (not affiliated to us at all).

 

A huge percentage of our schools go through our partners and resellers, and we believe for the vast majority of them this is the best option, as the partners do so much more than simple resell. They are first line support and they are (in many cases) the schools IT support team.

 

Oaktech, I am genuinely sorry you have had delays to this query, and I hope the above helps you understand a little more as to why this happened and what we charge for. Of course if you have any other questions at all, you are always welcome to contact me directly in the office via phone, email, pm or on these forums.

[Oaktech]

Thankyou @exa_mark.

 

I've only just taken over the IT at this particular school, I'm the NM at the federated school.

 

I don't even have an email address with them yet, which is why I've been using a mobile number and an email not at the school - it is however still a .sch.uk address. I understand why you would not be able to release information to me directly at this time and why I directed you to the BM.

 

I'm begining to wonder if the issue i'm seeing here, is mainly with the reseller rather than you guys. I am still awaiting information from the reseller which from your response suggests was supplied to them fairly promptly.

 

We don't use ESA and we never have done - we have an on premise exchange server - unfortunately we have not had anyone in post with the technical knowledge to challenge this, so we have been charged for this year on year for some time.

 

I'll get back on to Spire for more information.

 

We've changed broadband suppliers and the outgoing external support company were instructed to make DNS changes with you to reflect this, and these have simply not happened. I don't suspect this is EXA's fault either!

 

I'm desperately trying to get everything straight as the old connection has been left alive and in DNS for mail delivery and staff VPN. Unfortunately it is scheduled for disconnection in a month!

 

I've also got a query about the DNS screenshots I was sent through yesterday, but I'll address those to your tech support.

 

Again thanks for responding.