Why We Use ExchangeDefender

A while back we had a client that had booked a series of flights online.

A few minutes later, an e-mail with an attachment happened to arrive in his inbox with the airline’s “itinerary”. Without even thinking about it he opened the e-mail and the attachment and that was the point of no return.

The A/V, Trend, did not stop it.

So, we ended up in a bad situation that got worse when we discovered that the local laptop backups were not being done.

We had tried the cloud A/V and spam filtering that Trend had but we ended up having way too much grief with their service.

In comes Own Web Now’s ExchangeDefender.

The analogy we use when explaining why we prefer having the filtering done in the cloud before e-mail enters the corporate network works quite well.

The Anti-Virus program is like a 6’6” 275Lb bouncer that sits close to the front door. They can move about the place with relative ease and have access to all entry points in the place.

For the most part, the bouncer – name him/her whatever – catches any baddies that try to get in through the doors or the windows.

But, every once in a while a slim and short baddie does get by the bouncer because baddie is just too quick and new.

It then takes a bit of training for the bouncer to pick up on the new baddie and squash them at the point of entry. That delay can cause a big problem if the biddies' siblings happen to try and get in too.

With that imagery in mind, we can explain how Vlad’s service is set up to do just that long before the baddie even reaches the door. They get squashed out on the street! ;)

And, because the service is dedicated to this task alone, the filtering that is done will be that much better than anything the Anti-Virus vendors can do in real-time.

This morning, this was in an Inbox:

The file was culled before it reached the corporate network. A file culled out there is a file not clicked on by a user. Leaving that file to some form of Exchange based filtering or the endpoint workstation is a dangerous game we are no longer willing to play.

Given the fact that the cost of the ExchangeDefender service is very minimal relative to the level of services received it is not a difficult sell. We also include the ExchangeDefender service in our Hybrid Managed Services plans to add value to them too.

And, once our clients are onboard with our services and ExchangeDefender they do notice a big difference in the amount of time they no longer spend processing all of the junk e-mail.

Being a partner with Own Web Now is an important part of our business model (previous blog post). As we build up our client’s usage of the OWN services, the more confident we are going forward.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer