Mattermost Archives

How Modern Secure and Self-Hosted Messaging has Become a Cornerstone for Teams Worldwide

The current pandemic has accelerated the way we work together with teams worldwide and across all industries. And for this reason, modern workplace messaging has become a common interface for people and software to collaborate.

For many years, companies of all shapes and sizes have been looking for collaboration platforms. They are aiming to drive innovation while maintaining control and security over their most sensitive data. And here’s where messaging and collaboration platforms give development teams precisely what they need. That’s a workspace that allows them to be more productive while meeting IT and security teams’ control requirements.

Solutions like Mattermost and Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab, are excellent examples of this. Read more to find out why.

Introducing the Mattermost Extension

Mattermost is an open source messaging and developer collaboration platform that meets businesses’ trust and security requirements. From piloting spacecraft and ensuring national security to building electric cars and advancing vital infrastructure – enterprises use Mattermost daily to change the world.

Benefits of Working with Mattermost

A modern enterprise collaboration platform can increase organizational agility by bringing conversations, software, and data together. Mattermost not only makes DevOps collaboration more powerful through integrations with existing tools and systems. It also automates workflow allowing continuous integration and deployment. Let’s run through all its benefits:

Privacy, security, and compliance. Mattermost lets you keep full control of your messages, data, and intellectual property. It also runs your vital communications behind your firewall, self-hosted on the cloud of your choice and under your existing security and IT policies. And you can use its auditing tools to meet compliance requirements.
Productivity and agility. Mattermost empowers development teams to build workflow, ship software faster, and collaborate confidently.
Extensibility. Through integrations with other services and internal systems, it allows increasing ROI on existing software investments.
Open Source. As an open source platform, Mattermost ensures that teams are completely free to develop additional features without any restrictions.

Mattermost for Plesk Premium Email – The Perfect Match

Many of the world’s leading high-security enterprises work better with Mattermost by connecting people, tools, and automation across tens of thousands of users. And that’s why Mattermost integrates with Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab, acting as a secure chat module for the web client. With this union, teams are not only more connected and productive – they thrive!

Mattermost is supported on Plesk 17.8 or later, installed on the following Linux distributions: CentOS 7, Debian 8 and 9, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, and Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04.

It’s also worth noting that, additionally, Mattermost has some requirements when working with Plesk. The domain must be secured with a valid SSL certificate, and NGINX must be enabled in proxy mode. Also, on CentOS 7 and RHEL 7, it’s required to install Postgres 9.4 on the system that is incompatible with the PostgreSQL component.

Unlock Your Self-Hosted Email’s Full Potential

The Mattermost extension for Plesk Premium Email serves as a secure messaging platform, allowing teams to have more excellent connectivity. And enabling security for your business and teams even when remote.

Plesk’s self-hosted online office brings people, discussions, bots, tools, and files together. This shared workspace lets groups collaborate in real-time throughout the project lifecycle. Also, Mattermost’s self-hosted approach provides modern communication benefits without sacrificing privacy, giving more control to teams. Read more best practices for running a self-hosted email server here.

On top of this, with the Plesk Email Security extension, you can also synchronize email, calendars, contacts, files, and notes on any desktop or mobile device. You can set up auto-responders or allow real-time notifications for emails. Cloud storage, including WebDAV, lets you securely access files from anywhere. And it’s easy to integrate anti-spam filters so that your mailbox stays safe from viruses and spam. Not bad – huh?

Licensing

Mattermost is included in Plesk Premium eMail in the fully featured free open source edition that you can host for yourself or your customers. If you are interested in upgrading to the Mattermost Enterprise edition, you can try it for free, or easily purchase a license key from Mattermost directly.

To compare Mattermost’s open source edition versus their enterprise edition, please refer to this page: https://mattermost.com/pricing-feature-comparison/

So, are you ready to give Plesk Premium Email and Mattermost a try? Get a detailed look into all their features here and here. Go ahead – your team is waiting!

Get Mattermost for Plesk Premium Email

Enable Security for Your Business and Teams Even When Remote

Hackers are a notoriously opportunistic lot, and the global COVID-19 pandemic fits their agenda perfectly. According to UK Web security firm Cloudflare, online threats rose by as much as six times their usual levels in the early weeks of the outbreak. Based on the 2020 Data Breaches Investigation Report by Verizon, 28% of the breach victims were small businesses. And from an Accenture report from last year, 68% of business leaders felt their cybersecurity risks are increasing. It’s no wonder that in the wake of recent trends, security has become a top priority for small and medium businesses.

Choose Targeted Security Solutions

“WordPress Toolkit security scanner goes beyond the basics and implements the latest security recommendations and best practices from WP Codex and WP security experts.”

Marcus Krämer, CEO of HostPress

At Plesk, our goal is to prioritize your privacy and safeguard your data and business from security threats. Our tools provide targeted solutions for common security issues with little to no manual work. For example, we asked Marcus Krämer, the founder and CEO of HostPress, about the value WordPress Toolkit brings to their Managed WordPress hosting business. Marcus told us that, “WordPress Toolkit security scanner goes beyond the basics and implements the latest security recommendations and best practices from WP Codex and WP security experts.”

Key Recommendations to Improve Security

Recently, we also talked to Plesk’s Security Engineer, Igor Antipkin, about recommendations that can help you improve your project’s security. Igor outlined the following steps for anyone considering to take proper security approaches:

1. Use threat modeling to identify potential security risks.

As a first step, consider your security risks in the project design phase. List down all kinds of threats you might have. One advantage of using this approach is minimizing the likelihood of security breaches. It also saves you rework in the later stages of your project.

2. Inform yourself and your users about security risks.

Outdated software is the most common problem in this scenario. Make sure that your users know to keep software up to date and all the latest updates and patches are installed. Inform yourself about software security as much as you can. Stay involved in the community to stay up to date about potential issues.

3. Use the principle of least privileges.

Limit user permissions based on individual roles to give access where it’s needed. This limits the amount of damage any single individual can do to a website or server.

Special Offers

To round up, our umbrella of tools with a focus on security include:

Our self-hosted email and collaboration suite, Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab. It includes a secure, private file cloud using Seafile and a secure team messaging platform using Mattermost. You can also enhance email security with the Plesk Email Security extension.
If you use Plesk with WordPress, you can use the WordPress Toolkit to optimize your site’s security. WordPress Toolkit hardens your site by default and is enhanced with the Toolkit’s security scanner, which provides up-to-date recommendations for managing site security.
If you are a hosting reseller, with Plesk’s Web Host Edition you can easily manage teams. You have the ability to set permissions for individual users, developers, designers and content managers, who can seamlessly collaborate across multiple projects. You can also create customer accounts so that external administrators can manage their own services. The edition comes with security for protection from malicious users.

Currently, you can get 6 months free for Plesk Premium Email, 6 months free for WordPress Toolkit for 3 months free for Plesk Web Host Edition. Additional details about these offers can be found here.

We understand that these unprecedented times have brought unprecedented circumstances to us all. You can reach out to our team for support. And let us know in the comments if you’d like to share how your business is doing in the current situation.

Kolab Mattermost Plesk Email Security Plesk Premium Email Plesk WordPress Toolkit podcast Seafile security Self-Hosted Email Special Offers

Plesk Premium Email, Powered by Kolab: Secure, Self-Hosted Online Office

When the World Changes, We Respond

Gone are the days of the traditional workplace. Today’s workplace is always online and instantly accessible. It’s become even more clear recently that the traditional, on-premise approach to work is evolving. Innovative companies have already begun to implement new working environments in the cloud. You’ll notice that Microsoft Office has 20 million users worldwide. Slack has 12 million users. By 2023, 347 billion emails will be sent around the world.

As we move more and more processes online, the benefits but also the downsides become clearer. One of the big concerns users have about collaboration platforms is that of privacy. And the option to not get locked into a vendor’s technology stack and cloud. Inter-organization collaboration is also not easy. You can, of course, add partners, customers, and suppliers to your collaboration cloud. But all the data resides within your own tenant. Your partner has no access to it when your relationship ends. This is unlike email, where both parties keep a copy of all correspondence and interactions.

Until this resolves, email will remain an important communication channel.

Delivering the Best Email and Collaboration Experience

This week we announced the release of an enhanced version of Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab. It’s a new addition to the suite of Plesk services that’s more than an extension. Rather, it’s a complete hub for teamwork. It combines multiple collaboration services into a single user experience.

At Plesk, our goal is to preserve your privacy and safeguard your data. So we made sure that our new online office is self-hosted. Meaning that you can store your data on the Plesk server of your choice.

With our email tool, you can synchronize email, calendars, contacts, files, and notes on any desktop or mobile device. You can set up auto-responders or allow real-time notifications for emails. Cloud storage, including WebDAV, lets you securely access files from anywhere. With the Plesk Email Security extension, it’s easy to integrate anti-spam filters so that your mailbox stays safe from viruses and spam.

We also made sure that in this version, teams can collaborate from anywhere in the world. This is why we integrated several collaboration services that are a must for web professionals.

Co-Create with Collabora Online

With the Collabora Online extension, teams can focus on collaborating directly on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Collabora Online allows for collaborative editing and support for all major file formats. You can use it in any modern web browser without the need for plugins. It’s also open source and comes with document support and customizable integration for existing infrastructure.

Sync and Share Files with Seafile

Plesk Premium Email now allows integration with a self-hosted file sharing solution. The Seafile extension acts as your secure, private file cloud. Its functionality is like other file hosting services, such as Dropbox and Google Drive. The extension allows you to store big files and images in Seafile. You can access it directly from the Plesk Premium Email web interface.

One of the advantages of Seafile is that it gives you the ability to sync and encrypt an entire library separately. You can resume interrupted transfers, create password-protected links, get offline access, and edit documents with the WYSIWYG Markdown editor. The benefit of using Seafile over other platforms is that it supports self-hosted file sharing for private cloud applications.

Stay Connected to Your Team with Mattermost

The Mattermost extension for Plesk Premium Email serves as a secure messaging platform. It allows for teams to have greater connectivity. Teams are not only more productive – they thrive. Plesk’s self-hosted online office brings people, discussions, bots, tools and files together. This shared workspace lets teams collaborate in real-time throughout the project lifecycle. Also, Mattermost’s self-hosted approach provides more control and privacy to teams.

How Do I Get Started?

Are you ready to experience Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab? Get a detailed look into all the features here. We’re offering a special introductory discount of 50% off our regular price. And this time you have the benefit of delayed payment in the 7th contract month. Go ahead and find the right plan for you and your business.

Collabora Online extensions features Kolab Mattermost Plesk Extensions Plesk Premium Email Sealife

Helping You Stay Open and Connected During the COVID-19 Crisis

Strong businesses and communities are driven by people. We’ve responded to COVID-19 by doing whatever we can to keep your business open and our workforce safe. Our services are up and running and our remote teams are ready to help. At Plesk, about two-thirds of our more than 250 employees work from home. Currently, this number is even higher. Working from home doesn’t have to mean your company is less effective. In fact, when done right, a remote workforce can be efficient and happy.

Enabling A Remote Workforce

As your web host and cloud partner, Plesk is here to get you online. With products that power business — now — when it matters most. There are several Plesk extensions that make it easy for your team to communicate and collaborate, and track each other’s progress for multiperson projects.

“Having the right tools in your business can make all the difference, especially when times are turbulent or in transition.”

Frank Garcia, CEO of Co-Solutions

Plesk’s suite of email and collaboration tools, Plesk Premium Email, powered by Kolab, comes integrated with real-time and interactive team solutions. With our email tool, you can synchronize email, calendars, contacts, files, and notes on any desktop or mobile device. We talked to Frank Garcia, CEO of Co-Solutions about how his team is coping with the sudden transition to remote office. “Having the right tools in your business can make all the difference, especially when times are turbulent or in transition,” He noted. “For our remote teams, there are four tools that we absolutely cannot live without, Plesk Premium Email, Seafile, Mattermost, and Collabora.”

The Seafile extension acts as your secure, private file cloud. The extension allows you to store big files and images in Seafile. The Mattermost extension for Plesk Premium Email serves as a secure messaging platform. It allows for teams to have greater connectivity, daily conversations and mini-celebrations. With the Collabora Online extension, teams can focus on collaborating directly on documents, spreadsheets and presentations in real-time.

Takeaways from Managed Cloud Services

Managed cloud services provide business continuity and agility, which are extremely valuable for companies in periods of uncertainty and crisis. Some of our partners have been very agile in adapting and launching new managed services to respond to their customers’ needs.

A good example is NetNation, a leading provider of white-label web service solutions that has built a new generation of managed WordPress to help customers operate their business in these unprecedented circumstances.

We talked to Alex Goncharov from Product Management at NetNation about the WordPress Toolkit — Plesk’s solution for managed WordPress hosting. He told us that, “From online ordering to day-to-day management, WordPress Toolkit has provided a complete solution for our Gate.com brand’s Managed WordPress offering.”

We also talked to Niclas Alvebratt, CEO of Beebyte. Beebyte has been a Plesk partner for a year and a half now. It offers a unique and custom-built control panel for virtual servers, VPS, and shared hosting. Beebyte offers Shared WordPress hosting as one of its main, high-performance solutions.

“Adding the Plesk management layer to hosting services or managed WordPress offering has helped us grow beyond unmanaged services.”

Niclas Alvebratt, CEO of Beebyte

Niclas told us that, “Adding the Plesk management layer to hosting services or managed WordPress offering has helped us grow beyond unmanaged services”. Today, Beebyte is at the top when it comes to WordPress and e-commerce hosting in Sweden, regardless of whether it’s shared hosting, VPS, or multi-server load-balanced solutions. Thanks to its success, Beebyte can focus on continued services to all its users.

Special Offers

We’ve put together some new offers to help you adapt during these uncertain times. All new offers can be found on our pricing page.

Free 6 months of Plesk Premium Email for a yearly subscription, including Seafile and Mattermost for secure file sharing and team messaging.
Free 3 months of Plesk Web Host Edition for a yearly subscription. The package includes unlimited domains, full reseller account, subscription and hosting plan management.
Free 6 months WordPress Toolkit for a yearly subscription, including remote management for agencies.

We will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation very closely, and further increase our commitment to meet the changing demand patterns within the various industries in which we serve.

Thank you for your continued support and please do not hesitate to contact us.

Stay healthy,
Plesk