2 page Case Study - Posted 11/28/2006

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T-Systems Austria GesmbH

Deutsche Telekom Unit Keeps “Winning Team” for E-mail Security as it Moves to 64-bit

The T-Systems Austria GesmbH, part of Deutsche Telekom’s T-System IT business unit, has relied on Microsoft® Antigen for the e-mail security of its Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 infrastructure. So, as the technology leader moves to the 64-bit world of Exchange Server 2007, it’s also adopting Microsoft® Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server. The company praises its ability to catch viruses and dangerous file types—with easy administration and no hit on server performance.

Business Needs

T-Systems has to get technology right; its business depends on it. T-Systems is the business customer brand for Deutsche Telekom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications companies. The T-Systems division serves more than 160,000 customers in more than 20 countries, providing everything from support for corporate networks and IT solutions to end-to-end business process outsourcing.

When e-mail is so important to your users, you can’t afford to slow it down. With Forefront Security for Exchange Server, we get great protection and great performance.  Andreas Zit Senior Consultant, Business Infrastructure T-Systems Austria GesmbH

“Without e-mail, T-Systems wouldn’t be able to do its job,” says Andreas Zit, Senior Consultant, Business Infrastructure, T-Systems Austria GesmbH. “This is the technology we use to conduct our business. Everything happens through e-mail.”

That makes security for its e-mail infrastructure a top priority. Zit is aware that e-mail security can’t be taken for granted; he’s seen third-party antivirus products that degraded e-mail server performance. To ensure that everything continues to “happen through e-mail” at T-Systems Austria GesmbH, the company has depended on Microsoft Antigen for Exchange Server.

“Antigen has worked very well for us,” says Zit. “We haven’t had a single virus outbreak since deploying it. And we’ve never had the server degradation problems I’ve seen with third-party antivirus software. We’re very happy with it.”

Now, T-Systems Austria GesmbH is preparing to deploy Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to take advantage of its 64-bit computing power and the even greater reliability it offers through its enhanced clustering. That means T-Systems needs e-mail antivirus protection specially designed for its new 64-bit environment.

Solution

T-Systems Austria GesmbH and Zit expect to get that 64-bit protection from Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server, the successor to the Microsoft Antigen software that the company 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.  By shipping with and integrating multiple industry-leading antivirus engines, Forefront Security for Exchange Server provides comprehensive, layered protection against the latest threats.

T-Systems Austria GesmbH is currently testing a prerelease version of Forefront Security for Exchange Server together with a prerelease version of Exchange Sever 2007 on a two-node active/passive cluster running Microsoft Windows Server® 2003 on HP ProLiant DL380 G4 computers.

Zit says the company’s experience with both Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server has been so good that it plans to deploy the combined solution throughout its production environment once the final software is available.

That good experience began the moment T-Systems Austria GesmbH installed Forefront Security for Exchange Server. “Forefront Security for Exchange Server is very easy to install,” Zit says. “I was familiar with Antigen and this was the same experience: just run setup, choose some basic settings, and you’re ready to go. Perfect.”

T-Systems Austria GesmbH is running five antivirus engines simultaneously through Forefront Security for Exchange Server. The software is configured to scan all mail passing through the hub server. T-Systems Austria GesmbH is also using the solution’s incremental background scanning capability to scan all mail items on its mail store automatically on a daily basis, as well as taking advantage of the software’s ability to filter out potentially dangerous file-type extensions, such as .exe and .zip files.

Benefits

“We’re very happy with Microsoft Antigen, so why would we want to change?” asks Zit rhetorically. “You don’t change a winning team in the middle of the game. We’re going to stick with Forefront Security for Exchange Server.”

He says the antivirus capability of Forefront Security for Exchange Server is even better than that of its predecessor.

“Being able to deploy five antivirus engines simultaneously is very important, it adds greatly to security,” Zit says. “It can easily happen that one vendor is quicker than another to issue an update for a particular new virus. By using five engines developed by the leaders in the field, we have as much security as we can get. The more engines, the safer we are.”

The ability to filter dangerous file types is especially important to T-Systems Austria GesmbH.

“We are very restrictive about the file attachments we allow into our system and Forefront Security for Exchange Server does a perfect job of filtering the files we don’t want to have to worry about,” says Zit. “I also like that the software notifies me when these types of attachments attempt to enter the system and that it allows me to configure the type of notification it sends to the sender and recipient so there’s minimal impact on their productivity.”

In contrast to the drag on server performance that he’s seen from third-party antivirus products, Zit says that Forefront Security for Exchange Server implements the five-engine simultaneous scan without any hit on server speed. “When e-mail is so important to your users, you can’t afford to slow it down,” says Zit. “With Forefront Security for Exchange Server, we get great protection and great performance.”

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Document published November 2006