Guardian Management LLC

Real Estate Investment Firm Bets its Business on “Strategic” Choice for E-mail Security

Guardian Management LLC (Guardian) depends on Microsoft® Antigen to protect its Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 servers. With its planned upgrade to Exchange Server 2007, the company is also planning a move to Microsoft® Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server. Guardian finds it offers even more protection than Antigen, plus simple installation and trouble-free use that make life easier for its two IT staffers.

Business Needs

Will Wilson is a man with a mission.

Wilson, Director of Information Systems for Guardian Management LLC (Guardian), a third-generation real estate management and investment company based in Portland, Oregon, was brought on board three years ago with a mandate from top management. That mandate: to revamp the company’s separate silos of information into a fully integrated information infrastructure, one that could allow the company to use information in new ways for strategic and competitive advantage.

If he was going to make the information infrastructure more mission-critical to Guardian, Wilson knew he would also have to make that information infrastructure as secure as possible.

To that end, Wilson replaced the Symantec antivirus and antispam software that Guardian formerly used with Antigen for Exchange Server. “We converted from Symantec to Antigen because we liked that it integrated well into Exchange Server, how it scanned mail before it hit the message store, the use of multiple scanning engines, and it worked well with little system overhead,” says Wilson.

Those qualities are all very important to Guardian. The company manages its 350-mailbox, Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 infrastructure with just two IT employees. Two-thirds of its 5,000 daily incoming e-mail messages are spam and Antigen reduced the amount of spam that reached employees from three or four per day to none. A virus attack could bring Guardian’s mission-critical infrastructure to a halt; with Antigen, the company has yet to experience a single successful virus attack.

As part of his mission to enhance the company’s infrastructure, Wilson is now testing a prerelease version of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and preparing to deploy it in production once the final software is released. That means Guardian needs security software that is every bit as advanced as the new e-mail software the company intends to use.

Solution

Wilson is already testing a new security software as well: a prerelease version of Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server, security software designed to provide comprehensive protection against viruses, worms, and spam. The software works with a layered, multiple scan engine approach that helps stop the latest threats while also maintaining uptime, optimizing performance, and simplifying the management of Exchange Server messaging systems.

The solution is the successor to the Antigen software that Guardian already uses. It is one of a planned range of Microsoft Forefront products that will protect ever-larger aspects of a company’s Microsoft-based infrastructure.

Guardian is now running Forefront Security for Exchange Server on the Dell PowerEdge 1950 computer that is also hosting its trial of Exchange Server 2007. Wilson says that installing the security product couldn’t have been easier. “When you launch the install file, it asks which scanning engines you want,” he says. “You choose when you want to download updates, and which file types you want scanned. You use a single interface and the default is set to protect you from all known threats, viruses, and dangerous file types.”

Guardian is using five simultaneous antivirus scanning engines, up one from the four it used with Antigen. The software is set to help block .exe files, .bat files, and password-protected zip files. Wilson also likes that the solution can block files with which there may be legal, rather than security, concerns such as MP3 files.

The solution’s antispam capability, which activates the premium antispam features of Exchange Server 2007, is helping to protect Guardian employees from thousands of spam messages each day.

Benefits

Wilson sees Forefront Security for Exchange Server as a great product that is a strategic choice for his company.

“With Forefront Security for Exchange Server, Microsoft has made a great acquisition of a great product,” he says. “With the current build they’ve made it even better, with updated scanning engines and a product direction that makes it part of a larger umbrella of products. Just as we want to integrate and centralize our infrastructure, the Microsoft Forefront family will enable us to integrate and centralize our security software on a single interface. Because we have a small IT staff, being able to manage more of our environment simply and easily with Forefront Security for Exchange Server is very appealing. For example, I’m looking forward to monitoring Forefront Security for Exchange Server with Microsoft Operations Manager—we can’t do that with any other security software.”

“Forefront Security for Exchange Server has enhanced features—for example, to block specific file types—that will be great to have,” says Wilson. “They add more power and turn Forefront Security for Exchange Server into a truly great product. But it’s not just a matter of more features—the integration of Forefront with Exchange Server with other products is even better than the integration we saw with Antigen. It integrates proactively as part of the scanning flow. It’s not complicated to install or administer.”

“Forefront Security for Exchange Server just works,” concludes Wilson. “I don’t have to troubleshoot–it does its job very well and is low on maintenance. This isn’t a version 1 product at all—it’s like a version 10 product because of all the iterations of Antigen that preceded it. Microsoft has taken one of the best antivirus products for Exchange Server and just made it better.”

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