2 page Case Study - Posted 1/16/2007

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Tracy Unified School District

School District Learns E-Mail Security Can Do More, Cost Less, and be Easier to Use

The Tracy Unified School District wanted e-mail security that was as easy to implement and manage as it was reliable. That’s what it has with Microsoft® Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server. The solution offers more scanning engines and options than the McAfee software the district formerly used, is boosting uptime, and costs less. The district plans to add Microsoft® Forefront™ Security for SharePoint® to its Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server environment, as well.

Business Needs

There was a time when kids passed notes during class and parents called teachers to discuss their children’s progress. Today, those kids instant message (IM) each other and the parents and teachers—as well as students—communicate by e-mail.

I was confident that Forefront Security for Exchange Server was the best antivirus software to use with Exchange Server 2007 and it is.  Sara Windsor Senior Network Engineer Tracy Unified School District

The district receives more than 90,000 e-mail messages per day—of which more than 90 percent is spam or virus-infected. The district has run its e-mail system on Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 since its release, including heavy use of the anytime, anywhere e-mail access provided by Microsoft Office Outlook® Web Access (OWA). With the district’s recent move to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, the Exchange infrastructure now consists of an edge server, a hub transport server—which also functions as the mailbox server—and a client access server as a front end for OWA; the district also added a unified messaging server to accommodate voicemail-to-e-mail services
 
The district has found that the anti-spam features in Exchange Server, combined with a perimeter anti-spam device, have kept spam at bay. For antivirus protection, the district used McAfee GroupShield. While it was “a solid product,” according to Sara Windsor, Senior Network Engineer for the district, its management has been “cumbersome.”

“It required a GroupShield client which means I couldn’t run it from wherever I happened to be—I had to run it where I had the client installed,” says Windsor. “In addition to being difficult to manage, we had compatibility issues between McAfee and Exchange Server. We had outages a couple of times a year and other compatibility or configuration-related problems several times a year. It wasn’t a well integrated solution for us.”

Solution

Tracy Unified School District used its upgrade to Exchange Server 2007 as an opportunity to upgrade its antivirus solution as well—to Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server, the successor to Microsoft Antigen for Exchange Server and one of a planned range of Microsoft Forefront products that will protect ever-larger aspects of an organization’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 give organizations and businesses comprehensive, layered protection from viruses, worms, and spam in their messaging environments.

The district began testing prerelease versions of Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server on 2,500 e-mail boxes, then installed the final versions of those products when they became available, deploying them across the enterprise.

Forefront Security for Exchange Server is deployed on both the edge and hub transport servers. The school district is taking advantage of the solution’s five simultaneous scan engines, running five engines on the edge server and a different set of five engines on the hub transport server.

In addition, the district is using file-type filtering in Forefront Security for Exchange Server to block e-mail with potentially dangerous attachments, such as .exe files. It plans to use keyword filtering to block e-mail messages that don’t conform to district policy.

Based on its early success with Forefront Security for Exchange Server, the district also plans to use a prerelease version of Microsoft Forefront Security for SharePoint. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 has replaced file server-based storage as the locus of collaboration for students and faculty at the district. Until now, the district has relied on client-side antivirus software to scan files going into and out of SharePoint Server; the use of Forefront Security for SharePoint will add direct protection for the SharePoint data store, which Windsor says is essential to keeping district and student information secure.

Benefits

Windsor says that Forefront Security for Exchange Server addresses her two concerns about the district’s previous security solution—cumbersome management and uneven integration.

“Forefront Security for Exchange Server is easy to install and configure and it just works,” says Windsor. “I’ve honestly had no problems with it whatsoever. I didn’t even do much customization—most of the default settings work well for us. I can access Forefront Security for Exchange Server from wherever I am in the district—or even when I’m working from home at night. I couldn’t do that easily with McAfee. As we adopt Forefront Security for SharePoint, overall security management will become even easier, because I’ll be able to access both products from the same easy-to-use console.”

Reliability is up too. “I was confident that Forefront Security for Exchange Server was the best antivirus software to use with Exchange Server 2007 and it is,” says Windsor. “We’re seeing an improved customer experience because we’re not seeing the compatibility issues that we had with McAfee. When there is a question, we have one place to go for support—Microsoft Premier Support—so the few problems we have get resolved more quickly.”

For example, she says that content filtering in Forefront Security for Exchange Server is more reliable and easier to configure and use than the corresponding filter technology in McAfee.

Best of all, Windsor says the district is getting better performance at a better price than it did before. She estimates the district will save in excess of $10,000 in licensing costs by switching from McAfee to Forefront Security for Exchange Server “The ability to use five scanning engines on a server is huge,” she says. “And using different engines on each of our servers means we have even more coverage. Malware is so prevalent that you can’t be too protected. I feel more secure with Forefront—and our licensing costs are lower. It’s a win-win.”

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Document published January 2007