Who doesn’t like the beach, right? Well, if you’re someone who likes the beach, and likes to code, this blog is for you!

When running a Microsoft Exchange Server, you will want to avoid common pitfalls many face. While it’s an uphill battle, you can save time and money if you watch your server and prevent issues from occurring. With this in mind, here are three Microsoft Exchange Server problems and how to avoid them.

Emails not sending: Now, if your server doesn’t send out every email, you have a serious complication on your hands that you need to fix quickly. To test this, first ping the server and make sure that speeds are up to par. If they are, send a test email and verify that it arrives at its destination. Then, if both things are not out of the ordinary, you can rest easy knowing that your emails are reaching their destination. On the other hand, if users still watch as their emails don’t end up in the inbox of their destination, you may have a problem with your ISP. If this is the case, contact your ISP and ask for help. Sometimes you may be able to stay on top of problems with the email server that can cause problems sending by using some type of Microsoft exchange server monitoring so you can be notified the moment there’s a problem. There are a number of companies that offer products like this, and if it’s worth it to you, it may be something good to look into.

Slow server: During busy times, you may deal with a slow server. Other times, out of nowhere, you will deal with slow emails. To avoid problems, send out a companywide email and tell people to avoid sending large files. Instead, you need to encourage people to share data on the cloud. If the problem persists and people aren’t sending large files in droves, you will want to upgrade your servers. Otherwise, if you don’t take action, your users will grow frustrated and your clients will sit around waiting for important emails.

Hackers and spammers: If someone hijacks your server and uses it to send illegitimate emails, you will deal with a couple of issues. For starters, when a hacker breaks into your SMTP server, you will experience slower communication times. More importantly, if your ISP catches on, you may lose your account. This will cause severe headaches as your server will go offline. To check this out, watch your server and look for any strange devices.

If you take a proactive approach and monitor your SMTP server, you can avoid plenty of headaches others face when sending and receiving emails.

If you run an SMTP server in your office, you will want to ensure you don’t run into common and costly errors. While true, plenty of people take a foolish approach and only fix issues as they arise. This is unwise as you will cost yourself time and money in the future as issues will occur. In fact, it’s increasingly become necessary to monitor your SMTP server, and here are three reasons why this is true.

Data flow: If the data flow increases drastically, you will need to deal with the issue quickly. Think about it, when a hacker or mischievous individual takes control of your SMTP server, he or she can send malicious viruses or spam emails from your server. When this happens, not only will your server slow down, but it may get banned. To avoid this, watch your server and look for any spikes in traffic. Then, if you see new or unknown devices, check them out and take action.

Future upgrades: If you notice slow response times, you will want to upgrade your server. Now, all-too-often, an IT professional will not watch this and he or she will not respond quickly enough. Sadly, when one doesn’t upgrade their server in due time, the employees will suffer when they can’t access information or their email. Not only will you prevent gridlock in the short-term, but you will save money in the future when you invest your money and upgrade the server in a cost-effective way. If you’re using an exchange server, it may be worth your time and money to use an exchange server monitoring solution in order to keep tabs on your email server. This way, you’d be notified when there was a problem, and you could be proactive instead of reactive.

Watch employees: While an IT staff should not feel obligated to watch over employees all the time, it’s wise to ensure that they are working and sending out appropriate emails. Not only that, you want to ensure that they are not sending massive files that clog up the servers. Remember, when you can keep up on this, you can prevent problems. At the same time, employees will know how to share files in an efficient manner that doesn’t bog down servers.

If you run an SMTP server, you will want to monitor it constantly. Otherwise, if you miss one or two issues, minor or major, you will suffer drastically and waste money and time.

Web applications, or web apps, have become so ubiquitous that casual Internet users often aren’t aware of their existence on the websites they browse. When a site’s video player or shopping cart fails, however, suddenly users are displeased with their web experience, and this is often at the expense of the developers of these apps. Prevention can go a long way to ensure that users do not encounter bugs in web apps.

Listed below are a few simple ways that you can eliminate bugs from your web apps before users encounter them and require troubleshooting.

1. Decide on a supported browser list and use scripting to warn or redirect users with unsupported browsers.

By limiting users to specific browsers, you minimize the number of specific scripting and styling implementations that you need to address. You also reduce the number of browsers you need to test, allowing for more thorough testing of the ones that you do support.

2. When possible, use established cross-browser compatible libraries such as JQuery and EXT JS.

Many of these libraries have large communities developing and supporting them, meaning that they already are robust across a variety of browsers. This reduces the effort needed to manage multiple supported browsers and also leverages the effort of the existing development communities to do tasks you otherwise would have to build from the ground up.

3. Minimize complex styling and fancy effects that do not directly contribute to the user experience.

Users may appreciate bells and whistles; however, what they will appreciate even more is an app that works. Remember that every unnecessary feature you add to your app will add a number of unnecessary opportunities for bugs.

4. Thoroughly test apps on all supported browsers and verify that unsupported browsers are properly handled. Part of testing may also include monitoring your servers and apps to make sure that any servers the apps need to function are online, as well as the apps themselves. There are a number of companies that offer application performance monitoring solutions for problems like this. Some tools may be free, while others with more options and features may be paid.

Just as your elementary school teachers told you years ago, it is important that you check your work. Sloppiness or laziness at this point in the development process will only cause you headaches later down the line.

As you develop your web apps, remember Murphy’s Law–anything that can go wrong, will. With this in mind, it is vital that you preempt any serious bugs or issues that may arise. Thorough debugging means less troubleshooting at a later date.