Ultimate Anti-Spam Guide: 11 products tested
December 07, 2004
Editor's Choice: Symantec Brightmail, Network Box, and IronPort
We have split the Editor's Choice into the three separate anti-spam technology categories; software, managed service and appliance. Because there are so many e-mail environments out there, most administrators looking to deploy an anti-spam solution should by now have a fair idea which type of technology would suit their requirements.
Appliance winner: IronPort: strong security, redundancy and recently developed ease of installation with the new GUI make this appliance the choice in this review.
IronPort C30
Of three appliances submitted in this round-up, Iron Port is certainly the big brother of the systems. Sporting redundant power supplies, hard drives, and dual processor capabilities in the higher-end models, this is a purpose-built messaging gateway, with extra security features that simply would not be possible to integrate into a software application.
Naturally, because of the extra features and the hardware involved, this solution comes at a premium price, however if security is your aim and you would prefer not to have your mail servers in the front line, then our suggestion would be to evaluate one or more of the three appliances here.
Initial installation and configuration takes approximately 15 to 20 minutes for a total newcomer to the equipment, however once experienced this could probably be completed in less than 10 minutes.
For those of you who have had experience with IronPort appliances, the latest versions of the IronPort operating system now come with a graphical user interface (GUI) that steps the operator through each step of the initial configuration. For the die hards out there don't despair you can still access all the features and functionality you need with the command line interface (CLI) -- it hasn't disappeared.
Due to the interface configurations the mail servers can be totally shielded from the rest of the world. There are also many advanced features that operators can select to use which adds up to great security, granularity in configuration, and flexibility.
Overall, while not the cheapest box on the block the IronPort systems are still definitely one to put on the shortlist, particularly for larger organisations or ones requiring a high level of security.
