Should You Install Messaging Security Software on Your Exchange Server?

Should You Install Messaging Security
Software on Your Exchange Server? An Osterman Research White Paper
Published July 2008 SPONSORED BY

Osterman Research, Inc. . P.O. Box 1058 . Black Diamond, Washington 98010-1058 Phone: +1 253 630 5839 . Fax: +1 866 842 3274 . info@ostermanresearch.com . www.ostermanresearch.com Should You Install Messaging Security Software on Your Exchange Server?
Executive Summary
Security is the most single critical task for any email administrator. Starting with a foundation of anti-spam and anti-virus capabilities, organizations should focus on other capabilities, as well, including policy management and a variety of other tasks designed to protect the network and the company from external and internal threats. There are a number of ways to deploy messaging security, including appliances, software installed on dedicated servers, hosted or managed services and installation of software directly on the email server itself. While there are proponents and opponents of these approaches, there seems to be relatively strong opposition to the last approach on the part of many email administrators. Osterman Research conducted a survey for Sunbelt Software to determine attitudes toward installing security software directly on servers that run Microsoft Exchange Server. Because many IT decision makers have an aversion to installing any third-party software directly on the hardware that runs Exchange Server, we wanted to determine how strong this aversion might be, as well as the potential for addressing the concerns that lead to many decision makers' reluctance to install any third-party on Exchange Server. SURVEY BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY Osterman Research completed 102 Web-based surveys during June 2008 with individuals who are involved in managing Microsoft Exchange for their organizations. The organizations surveyed had a median of 1,250 employees and a median of 630 email users. Organizations across a range of industries were surveyed. Seventy-one percent of users in the organizations surveyed are on Exchange 2003, 25% are on Exchange 2007 and the balance are on earlier versions of Exchange. What we found was interesting. While many administrators are opposed to the notion of installing software directly on Exchange Server, many are actually open to the idea of doing so if someone can demonstrate that it will not negatively impact the performance of Exchange. This white paper discusses the detailed results of the survey, our conclusions about administrators' attitudes about installing third-party software on the Exchange Server, and it provides information on Sunbelt Software's Ninja Email Security, a robust and comprehensive email security solution that can be installed directly on the Exchange Server with no adverse effects on system performance.
©2008 Osterman Research, Inc. 1 Should You Install Messaging Security Software on Your Exchange Server?
Survey Findings
IS EXCHANGE "TOUCHY"? One of the issues that we wanted to explore in this survey was the extent to which Exchange might be considered "temperamental", and so might cause administrators to feel uneasy about installing any third-party software on the server along with Exchange. We asked a series of questions to determine just how temperamental Exchange might be. Here is what we found: . Only 25% of Exchange administrators largely or completely agree that Exchange Server is "touchy". . Only 25% of Exchange administrators largely or completely agree that Exchange Server runs more slowly than administrators consider to be acceptable. . Only 15% largely or completely agree that Exchange Server is difficult to manage. . Only 13% largely or completely agree that Exchange Server suffers "lots" of downtime. . Fifty-nine percent of Exchange administrators largely or completely agree that Exchange is a great email system, while 72% have no plans to migrate away from Exchange during the next five years. In short, then, our findings demonstrated that the vast majority of Exchange administrators consider Exchange to be a fairly solid messaging platform that suffers acceptable levels of downtime and is simply not difficult to manage, as shown in the following figure. Agreement With Perceptions About Exchange Server

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