This product consists of two modules, an SMTP server and a management console, which work together to filter emails, and a third that performs Bayesian analysis.
There are several ways the software can be installed: either on a DMZ inside the internal network, or on the mail server itself (though the vendor only recommends this for light email traffic).
The vendor recommends the first, but for testing purposes we installed the software within the same network.
The installation had no problems, but took a while to complete. The vendor's minimum server spec for an organization of 500 users is a Pentium 4 1GHz processor with 512MB of memory. It also requires a Windows operating system such as NT 4.0, 2000, XP or 2003.
Our test bed was below that specification, but the software seemed to do its job well enough when we sent our test emails through the system.
The management console provides the user interface through which the software can be tuned to weed out spam, enforce corporate email policy and filter messages.
One of the best parts of the software is this console. It is clearly laid out, and features such as reporting facilities are easy to find and run.In the console, administrators can create whitelists to allow delivery of emails to defined domains or internal addresses. This is a handy feature should a client's email address be on a blacklist.
The software also comes with a database of known spam techniques the administrator can use to filter email traffic. Rule filtering allows administrators the ability to weed out not only offensive mails but also delay the sending of large file attachments and blocking or allowing file types.
The rules can be tailored to copy certain types of emails to administration accounts and stamp emails with pre-defined text.
The software worked well in conjunction with a separate mail server in our tests, and the reporting functions and the user interface are among the best we have seen.
