Cost effective spam filtering....

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

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Hi all, at current we dont have any spam filtering in place on our systems so some of our email addresses get hammered with junk emails.

We were originally going to look at getting Symantec's cloud based solution but it was coming in at £1700-£1800 per year for all our users so we were looking for something cheaper.

Then I stumbled across Postini as it was MASSIVELY cheaper (about a fifth of the price) but it appears that they do not sell it on its own now after a convo with someone over at Google Ireland, they'll only sell it to Google Apps customers. Lame.

Now I've seen that because we are a charity we can get Symantec Mail Security 6.5 for Microsoft Exchange for £3+VAT per user, which is a great price but i'm just wondering if anyone knows of any alternatives for a similar price, or any other good cloud based services?
 
Because the costs for moving over to Google Apps are way over our budget when we have a perfectly good and working exchange server!
 
Symantec (Messagelabs) have gone downhill since the acquisition. Par for the course really.

Sophos' appliance is worth a look, but DO NOT try to run PureMessage on your Exchange servers. The one client we have that does it has no end of problems with traffic flows stalling and being blocked for no reason. Trying to sell them on the appliance but they won't budge, even though the hassle and downtime of email has easily cost them equal that amount (or more).

Barracuda's appliances are popular, although I have no experience with them.
 
bigdunc said:
We use Trend Micro Hosted Security which seems to work quite well

http://www.trendmicro.co.uk/products/hosted-email-security/index.html
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The company I work for has about 15 customers using HES, and we try to push customers to migrating to it whenever we can. Most of our customers have the Worry Free Advanced package, which includes the HES service, making it "free" as far as they're concerned. I have no idea how much it costs separately, though.

I won't pretend it's perfect (what product is?) but we've had very few problems with it. The only real downside that can think of is that you have to manually upload a csv with all of your SMTP addresses. As there's no facility for the service to query your server for updates you have to upload the list each time you make a change. Otherwise it's a robust, effective service.
 
Yamahahahahaha said:
Sophos' appliance is worth a look, but DO NOT try to run PureMessage on your Exchange servers. The one client we have that does it has no end of problems with traffic flows stalling and being blocked for no reason. Trying to sell them on the appliance but they won't budge, even though the hassle and downtime of email has easily cost them equal that amount (or more).
Click to expand...

you need to sort out the install then Puremessage For either Lotus domino, or Ms Exchange 2003/2007 & 2010 works fine if installed correctly. And is a very good spam / av product.
 
DustyMiller said:
you need to sort out the install then Puremessage For either Lotus domino, or Ms Exchange 2003/2007 & 2010 works fine if installed correctly. And is a very good spam / av product.
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I could write an essay on the topic, but yes Puremessage is a good anti-spam product. Sophos has been extremely poor for AV / Malware detection, protection and removal in my experience. The enterprise console is the product's saving grace really.
I don't know why their setup acts like it does, but neither does Sophos after almost 18 months of similar issues on Exchange 2k3 (now 2010).
 
Check out clearswift, our company won't spend a bean more than needed and that's what they use! The appliance can also run in virtualized, and is managed via a web browser, very easy to setup and manage.

Symantec / message labs are ridiculously expensive.
 
Saundie said:
The company I work for has about 15 customers using HES, and we try to push customers to migrating to it whenever we can. Most of our customers have the Worry Free Advanced package, which includes the HES service, making it "free" as far as they're concerned. I have no idea how much it costs separately, though.

I won't pretend it's perfect (what product is?) but we've had very few problems with it. The only real downside that can think of is that you have to manually upload a csv with all of your SMTP addresses. As there's no facility for the service to query your server for updates you have to upload the list each time you make a change. Otherwise it's a robust, effective service.
Click to expand...

I used to think that was the case with IMHS but it's not actually. I don't upload any kind of CSV file, and Trend just filters the mail and pushes it down to the server as normal. I use it for the majority of my clients and it works a treat, the logging is great and has everything you need in terms of policy settings etc. Of course being hosted, there's nothing to manage at your side, and if your server is down it can queue the mail for up to 5 days as well. It really is brilliant value when paired with the Worry-Free Advanced package as you say, but can be licensed as its own separate product if you prefer. It's about £1-£2 a month on its own, depending on the number of licences you buy.
 
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