MailScanner on Exchange

Stephen Swaney steve.swaney at fsl.com
Tue Nov 1 16:46:41 GMT 2005


> -----Original Message-----
> From: MailScanner mailing list [mailto:MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On
> Behalf Of hermit921
> Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 11:20 AM
> To: MAILSCANNER at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
> Subject: MailScanner on Exchange
> 
> My company decided to move to Exchange for its main mail server "It's a
> Management decision".  The two people hired to manage Exchange claim there
> are products that run on the Exchange server that do everything
> MailScanner
> (and associated programs) can do.  I don't believe it.  Could I be wrong,
> or even mostly wrong, about this?
> 
> hermit921

This question should set off a flurry of responses :) An Exchange server can
work quite well if you have many $$$, plenty of good technical support and
lots of computer resources but they should always be protected from the
Internet. I come from a paranoid investment banking environment and there
they always protect the Exchange servers behind gateways!

A few of my comments:

1. Exchange servers tend to be relatively BUSY. Having a MailScanner gateway
in front of the Exchange server will GREATLY reduce the load on the Exchange
server because it will stop most of the Junk at the gateway. We have
installed MailScanner gateways on sites that thought they needed an
expensive Exchange hardware upgrade. The load was so greatly reduced; the
old hardware is still running quietly with no strain. 

2. You can run multiple free (or lower cost) Virus scanners on the
MailScanner gateway. You'll still want a virus scanner on the Exchange
server to internal mail for viruses but if you have an enterprise license
for a virus scanner, you can probably also use that scanner on the gateway
at no additional cost.

3. I like to keep Microsoft servers as far away from the Internet as
possible. Having a gateway and configuring your Exchange server correctly
will keep it a lot safer, more reliable and quieter.

4. Read Microsoft's white paper on how to stop spam :) The list is down so I
can't find the link but it's quite amusing and quit sophomoric. Possibly
some packrat can send you the link. 

Steve

Stephen Swaney
Fort Systems Ltd.
stephen.swaney at fsl.com
www.fsl.com

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