2 page Case Study - Posted 11/8/2006
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Del Monte Gets Both Performance and Efficiency in E-Mail Security Solution
“Forefront Security for Exchange Server goes hand-in-hand with Exchange Server 2007. We wouldn’t put anything else for e-mail security on our Exchange Server 2007 machines.”
Chris Habala, Senior Architect/Analyst. Del Monte
Microsoft Antigen has been a key part of protecting Del Monte’s e-mail infrastructure. Now, as the company plans a move to Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, it’s also planning a move to Microsoft® Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server, the successor to Antigen. Del Monte says it’s an “outstanding” product—and that the enhanced efficiency features, such as the elimination of redundant scanning, will also relieve pressure on Del Monte’s small e-mail IT staff.
Video Case Study
Every day, IT professionals need to manage complexity & costs while providing their business with a flexible infrastructure to drive new business opportunities. At the same time, they face increasing challenges in protecting information and controlling access. Together, Forefront and System Center help maximize productivity, simplify administration, and integrate with existing infrastructure so that you can reduce costs, empower your business, and maintain control. Through Forefront and System Center, companies at all stages of infrastructure maturity can create an IT environment that is secure and well managed. Learn how Del Monte Foods has realized these benefits in this video case study.
Business Needs
For more than 100 years, the name Del Monte has meant the highest quality food products in a growing range of categories, from produce to seafood to pet food and more. As the company has grown to become a global enterprise, so has its dependence on its e-mail system.
The company’s 3,500 e-mail boxes receive more than 300,000 e-mail messages per week over that system, which is based on Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 e-mail and collaboration software. The first challenge for the company’s IT team is separating the spam so that the company’s employees can get to the messages that matter; like most major corporations, Del Monte is bombarded with spam, which constitutes up to 60 percent of incoming mail.
The second challenge is ensuring that viruses, worms and other malware don’t bring down the network. A successful attack could hit critical systems, costing the company millions of dollars per day in delayed operations, according to Chris Habala, Senior Architect/Analyst at Del Monte.
A few years back, addressing these challenges was itself a challenge for Del Monte. Then the company adopted Antigen for Exchange Server.
“Since we started using Antigen, we haven’t had any problems with email viruses,” says Habala. We were especially impressed with Antigen’s ability to do file filtering—to keep out the executables and other files that could cause a problem on our network.”
Antigen became a crucial element in Del Monte’s layered defense against e-mail security threats. But now, to better manage its ever-growing e-mail system, Del Monte is planning a migration to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. That move requires Del Monte to reconsider its e-mail security strategy, according to Habala.
Solution
That’s why Del Monte is also planning to adopt Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server, the successor to the Antigen solution that Del Monte already uses, and one of a planned range of Microsoft Forefront products that will protect ever-larger aspects of a company’s Microsoft-based infrastructure.
Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server includes multiple scan engines from industry-leading security firms integrated in a single solution to help businesses protect their Exchange messaging environments from viruses, worms, and spam. It ships with and integrates multiple industry-leading antivirus engines to provide comprehensive, layered protection against the latest threats.
Del Monte is currently testing a prerelease version of Forefront Security for Exchange Server on a mailbox server in its Pittsburgh office running a prerelease version of Exchange Server 2007 on a Hewlett Packard DL580 computer. That site also supports two bridgehead servers and a two-node mailbox cluster. Del Monte also maintains mailbox servers in San Francisco, Ecuador, and American Samoa.
“Forefront Security for Exchange Server was really easy to install,” says Habala. “It’s very similar to the Antigen interface. We just configured the scan engines we wanted to use, chose an update schedule for those engines, and the type of actions we wanted to take with the unwanted files. It was that easy.”
Del Monte is using five simultaneous antivirus scanning engines, with each engine updated on a staggered schedule. “Being able to use engines from five vendors, continually updated, is extra insurance that I’m glad we have,” says Habala.
The company is also testing the solution’s ability to filter out potentially dangerous file-type attachments, such as .exe, .bat, .cmd, and .scr. “Forefront Security for Exchange Server works just like Antigen,” says Habala. “It stops everything we want it to stop.”
Benefits
“Forefront Security for Exchange Server goes hand-in-hand with Exchange Server 2007,” says Habala. “We wouldn’t put anything else for e-mail security on our Exchange Server 2007 machines. The software is well-respected. It’s been around; it’s proven. Our own experience with Antigen is that it’s an outstanding product. Forefront Security for Exchange Server makes Antigen even better.”
Habala cites new features in Forefront Security for Exchange Server that Del Monte is testing or anticipates using after it deploys the software throughout its e-mail infrastructure. For example, the software’s ability to tag a scanned message eliminates the need to rescan the message as it moves through an e-mail system. Del Monte is using this feature to scan e-mail messages on its Exchange Server 2007 Hub Transport server, so there’s no redundant scanning on the message store.
“By eliminating redundant scanning, Forefront Security for Exchange Server is saving us queue times,” says Habala. “Our e-mail messages won’t get backed up. There’ll be no slowdown due to scanning. E-mail will be delivered faster.”
Similarly, the new software’s ability to do automatic, incremental scanning—for example, of all messages on a mail store less than 48 hours old—will eliminate the need for Del Monte to perform the full mail store scans it’s been performing weekly. Habala estimates that will save his e-mail administration staff 5 to 10 hours per week.
“We have a small staff responsible for email—just me and two others,” says Habala. “The time that we save thanks to Forefront Security for Exchange Server will enable us to focus more on strategic planning.”
Habala also anticipates using other solution features, such as content and key-word filtering. “Forefront Security for Exchange Server gives us the ability to do content filtering using the same software we use for antivirus scanning,” he says. “We don’t have to purchase and manage another software package. That makes it very easy for us to add this capability.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published November 2006
