With anti spam vendors offering low cost licensing, businesses
can now afford advanced email spam and virus protection with
a simple to use interface at a much lower cost. The great thing
about technology is that as it evolves it gets faster, additional
features and economical. Over the past few years the same evolution
has taken place with anti spam technology and services. In large
part this can be attributed to the open source software community
plus enterprising companies enhancing the capabilities of this
software and packaging it into easy to use anti spam appliances.
It is not practical to have anti spam software running on
desktops in a networked business environment. Managing all
employee junk email software at the desktop is not realistic.
It can be a nightmare and costly in terms time and licensing.
Spam appliances sit in front of your email server so that
when email comes in it will first go to the spam appliance
and the email will be scanned for spam as well as viruses.
The filter will block the message if it identified as know
spam. If the filter is not sure if the email is genuine it
will quarantine and hold the email at the filter and it will
be stored until the recipient deletes it, releases it to their
email box, or they can white list a trusted correspondent so
that future emails will not be held back. This will greatly
reduce the load on your email server and reduce your bandwidth
needs. We have seen anti spam systems block up to 83% of incoming
messages. This could help extend the life of your email server
and push back the need for upgraded capacity.
Most virus outbreaks occur via email and for little cost an
appliance can block viruses before they reach your network
and user's inboxes. This provides an extra layer of defense
in addition to your current anti virus solution.
Businesses have two options if they use an appliance based
solution for their spam and virus control. They can purchase
and administer their own filter. This is a good option if you
have a large number of employee mailboxes to protect and the
technical staff to administer the spam appliance. Businesses
also have the option to outsource their spam control as a hosted
service. This is a good choice for smaller companies and if
information technology is not your specialty.
If you purchase your own spam filter, a subscription to updates
may also be required. Make sure you get upfront pricing for
the add-ons that you will need. If you have more than 100 email
users and the technical staff to maintain the spam appliance,
buying your own filter may be your best option. Generally the
basic model will work for most organizations. Large organizations
with thousands of users will require a spam filter appliance
with increases capacity and features. Spam appliances are designed
to work with all mail systems but some do have specific enhancements
for Exchange server Microsoft's popular collaboration software
and mail servers that support LDAP (light weight directory
access protocol). Spam appliances use the LDAP protocol to
verify recipients before delivering messages to your email
server, this avoids consuming server resources.
If your business has five to one hundred employees, then an
outsourced anti spam and virus filter service is going to be
a good economical choice for your organization. Fees are based
on the number of users and you only pay for what you use. You
will not have hardware to buy, maintain, and upgrade. The upfront
cost is minimal and most email filtering providers will let
you try the service for free at first. Another added benefit
to outsourcing your spam control is redundancy. It is important
that you choose a provider that has their spam and virus filters
collocated at secure internet data center facilities. Data
centers provide redundant network connections and power, so
if your email server or internet connection is down unexpectedly
the spam appliance will hold your email until your email server
becomes available, minus spam and viruses.
Anti spam technology is constantly improving and the costs
are getting lower. With increased productivity and an added
layer of defense against virus attacks, an anti spam appliance
or service is something your business can not afford to be
without.
