The Symantec Mail Security appliance offers features, such as filter policies, that can be set up for compliance, spam and viruses. It also includes several types of dictionaries, attachment filters and number pattern detection to detect number patterns, such as credit cards or Social Security numbers.
We found this product to be fairly simple to set up. However, the configuration wizard, while easy to follow, is vague at certain points in the set-up, such as the configuration of the interfaces and deployment. Once set up, the web interface takes over with a clean and organized tab top navigation structure. The dashboard is also well organized and provides a quick, but detailed look at the system status. We also found policy management and settings to be simple and intuitive.
This product includes a getting started card and a planning guide, as well as an implementation guide. The getting started card and planning guide work together to help guide the configuration of the device by explaining each step of the configuration wizard. However, explanations are simply a "now enter this here" and do not describe steps in much detail. This can leave some steps slightly confusing, and configuration can become a guessing game. The implementation guide takes over after configuration and is very descriptive in providing instructions on setting up policies and advanced configuration.
Symantec Mail Security software subscriptions include either basic or business essential support. Here is a brief description of these offerings. Basic support: Business hours, 9-5 telephone support plus access to onsite support; Business Essential Support: 24 hour x 365 day a year telephone support. This costs five percent more than basic support. Each Symantec Mail Security appliance includes three years of next business day onsite hardware repair.
The Mail Security appliance starts at $8,995. Symantec Mail Security 8300 is licensed on a per user basis and pricing varies depending on whether the customer wants to enable anti-virus, anti-spam, premium content control, or any combination. Pricing includes content updates, support and maintenance. While this may seem like a lot, the appliance provides a lot of protection and this would be a good value for larger environments.
