Content

Tumbleweed MailGate 3.6.1

The MailGate 3.6.1 solution from Tumbleweed (now a part of Axway) is a hardware appliance that performs as a message transfer agent to secure inbound and outbound email. This is accomplished through several modules, including edge defense protection, IP reputation analysis, rate throttling, anti-malware, anti-spam and content filtering based on policies, such as keywords and smart identifiers.

Setup and configuration of the appliance was not as smooth as we had hoped it would be. On reading the instructions, the initial setup is done by connecting a keyboard and a monitor. However, our appliance had both VGA ports disabled. Additionally, an initial username and password are not provided for installation. In order to get things configured, both issues had to be addressed with a call to support. After we cleared these hurdles, we were finally able to catch a glimpse at the web GUI, which is professional looking and easy to navigate.

The product has a built-in anti-malware engine. This provides zero-hour protection, anti-spam via IP reputation and content-based analysis, zombie detection, rate throttling based on whether or not the device thinks the message is trusted, and a policy module. The policy module applies many common dictionary (lexicon) terms, as well as customized regular expressions and a few out of the box smart identifiers (credit card and Social Security numbers). The appliance helps administrators with its clustering capability, granular logging and automated reporting that can be scheduled and emailed to various stakeholders.

We found the initial setup documentation to be incorrect and it did not match what we had to do in order to set up the appliance.

Gold support via phone or email is included with the base price of the product. Platinum and dedicated support are available as well.

The features are rock solid. Given the price, we feel the initial setup experience should be a bit more defined and predictable than it was for our testing.
Product title
Tumbleweed MailGate 3.6.1
Product info
Name: MailGate 3.6.1 Description: Price: $8,000
Strength
Good set of security features. Excellent administrative capabilities
Weakness
Setup instructions were incorrect.
Verdict
Despite the difficulties with the setup, overall the product is a fairly strong offering from Tumbleweed.

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