Setting Up Mimecast Continuity Monitor

This guide will walk you through the step-by-step process of setting up Mimecast’s Continuity Monitor to ensure your organization’s email remains secure and uninterrupted, even if your primary email service is disrupted. 

Mimecast Continuity is only available for Office 365 environments.

How Mimecast Continuity Works

• Automatic Activation: If Mimecast detects a service disruption, Continuity Mode is automatically enabled. Users can continue sending and receiving emails through Mimecast during the outage.
• Resynchronization: Once your primary email service is restored, Mimecast will automatically sync all emails sent and received during the disruption back to your main mail server.

Prerequisites

• Access to the Mimecast Administration Console
• Microsoft Office 365 administrator credentials

Set Up the Cloud Connector (Prerequisite)

1. Log in to the Mimecast Administration Console.
2. Navigate to Integrations | Connectors.
3. Create a new connector:
   • Click Create New Connector
   • Select Continuity from the available options.

• When prompted, authenticate to your Office 365 environment using the required credentials and permissions.

4. Review and confirm the connector settings to ensure proper synchronization and mail flow.
5. Test the connector:
   • Run the connector test to verify that integration and email delivery are successful.

Configure Continuity Monitor

1. In the Mimecast Administration Console,
2. Navigate to Services | Continuity
3. Click New Continuity Monitor to begin configuration.

4. Set up detection parameters to monitor email service disruptions.

• Description: Specify a description
• Notes: You can enter any notes here
• Time Zone: Select your time zone
• Enable Inbound Check: Choose your delivery route.
• Enable Outbound Check: Set a latency threshold, select a connector (if applicable), and set a test email address.
• Failure Counter Threshold: Used to trigger notifications.

5. Configure alert preferences:
   • Specify how and when administrators should be notified if an issue is detected. This can be done via SMS or email.
6. Adjust thresholds and notification settings as needed to fit your organization’s requirements.

Next Steps

Continuity is now monitoring your email environment for disruptions and will alert you when we are not detecting mail flow and allow Mimecast to failover as your mail provider until the server is back up and running. Users will be able to access their email via their Mimecast Personal Portal.

For more information on Mimecast Continuity Monitor and Continuity in general, please visit our Mimecast Community knowledge articles here.