The Peculiar Case of Email in the Cloud

The problem with Internet-hosted servers is that the lack of a usable SMTP relay makes e-mail very difficult. Yes, it’s possible to install Postfix as a full-blown e-mail server, but I have no desire to worry about securing my own e-mail server from attacks attempting to use me as a SPAM relay. And although installing a non-relaying e-mail server certainly is possible, I’ve found that unless you configure SPF records, MX records and get particularly lucky, e-mail sent from a cloud instance often never arrives at the destination. This is especially true if you spin up servers on the fly.