Front-End Best Solution - Anti-Spam/Virus, etc....

[SNosko]

Who has the best solution for a Front-End Exchange server that filters out Spam, viruses and rejects email not destined for our domains? What solutions have you tried that you didn't like?

Thanks for your help,

Snosko

 

[lgarner]

For viruses, I've used Trend Micro and really like it. The NeatSuite is a pretty good deal. This isn't the frontend version, but runs on an Exchange server.

For the rest, I set up a frontend server with Spamassassin, and just rejected mail to invalid addresses. It only took manual configuration to update the public folder addresses and others that Exchange doesn't treat as "real" addresses and are thus invisible.

 

[nhidalgo]

We use Sybari's antigen for Antivirus and spam. It works great. It uses 9 scaning engines at the same time. The engines are:
Norman Data Defense
Nai McAfee 4.x
Sophos Anti-Virus
CA InoculateIt
CA Vet
Command
Sybari Worm List
Virus Buster
Kaspersky.

and one spam engine called SpamCure. We get numerious updates hourly and haven't had i virus come through.

http://www.sybar.com

We orginally had Mcafee's Groupshield, it caused oall kinds of problems and we weren't happy with getting updates once every couple days.

Also tested Trend micro and Norton enterprise, but i believe Antigen is the better product.

Nick

 

[buddafish]

i have a barracuda spam firewall in front. It uses LDAP lookups to validate recips. Lots of easy config / filter options. Virus / trojan scans too. No more badmail, and about 90% of the spam is gone from our mailboxes.

 

[nhidalgo]

buddafish,

do you use something else for email av or just the barracuda. I was looking into one but heard some bad reviews on it.

Nick

 

[fs483]

I use Sybari exlusively on all my mail servers. Microsoft just bought Sybari BTW so they must be pretty good !

 

[buddafish]

yea, the barracudda has it's virus / trojan engine but we run NAV on the exchange box too. the cuda is just the first line to weed out bogus mail. today's report: 12,077 total inbound, 11,390 blocked, 100 tagged, 586 valid... i have not read any bad reviews on this product and my experience has been good. today we have many options for spam firewalls. it comes down to size of organization, budget and functionality required. with any spam firewall, there will be administration and training. personally, i would use a separate appliance in front of the exchange box(s)no matter which product you choose.

scottie

 

[nhidalgo]

Thanks for the info. I have ordered a demo unit the 300 series. Are you using the ldap exchange Accelerator?

Nick

 

[SNosko]

Hey Nick,

Let me know how you like the 300. Thats the one I'm looking at. I would like to use the ldap feature also.

Scottie,

I agree with you. A front-end appliance is the way to go.

SNosko

 

[buddafish]

yes to the ldap accelerator. this is a MUST if you want to filter out by valid email recip. i too am using the 300 and am enjoying a virtually spam-free mail system. the faqs page and technical docs are somewhat useful to get things going...

http://forum.barracudanetworks.com/bb/faq.php

 

[nhidalgo]

SNosko.

I setup the barracuda 300 today and it works great. We are blocking about 1000 spam messages an hour. I had it up and running in about 10 minutes. The ldap accelertor is diffently worth the extra money.

Nick

 

[SNosko]

Thanks for the info guys. I just bought one. I also found out that our telephone vendor Hello Direct uses the barracuda.

SNosko