-----Original Message----- From: Chad Leigh
> I've been using SA for at least a year or two now and love it! We > combine it with MailScanner with ClamAV and out of 20,000 emails per > week receive no viruses and block out around 4,000 pieces of > spam.....and really only about 100 pieces of spam slip through the > cracks. I think that is awesome! > > My problem is the IT Director loves SA too, but is wanting to purchase > one of the Spam Appliances that handles all the updating, etc. for a > fee. I can't see that it would be a wise investment as the appliances > are at least $1500 and yearly subscriptions are around $150 for spam > and virus updates. He's thinking that in addition to not having to add > rules for spam slipped through the cracks to SA that the appliance will > be more accurate. I think it'll be about the same. I bet you are correct. The funny thing is that some people think that just because some aspects of the spam thwarting process is automated, it means the solution is hands-off. This is rarely the case. It is difficult to just give arguments though. It really depends on your environment. For example, a company I consult for uses Postini. Postini is a great service. It is very expensive but the anti-spam solution is outsourced for my client so it is hands-off. They have more money to toss at the problem which means that they buy their IT staff's time back. The staff is not technically adept with Email anyway so they benefit from outsourcing. What they loose is any ability to customize their mail processing. Now this solution at another company would be totally wrong as another organization may have a qualified staff and may really need the flexibility. So in the end, it is really up to you to develop the arguments as only you know all the trade-offs and the specific appliances you are considering. Arguments are a dime-a-dozen until aimed at a specific situation. I must admit, after writing the above, that I can not understand the choice to go with an appliance over an already installed SA solution. You really loose the flexibility that SA offers for a closed solution. I have heard the argument from people that they would be willing to accept a higher FN rate if they did not have to deal with the solution on a daily basis. I have yet to have anyone really quantify acceptable parameters though. The immediate drawbacks for you are: 1) learning a whole new system (that you may need to supplement with additional checks anyway 2) potentially loose some flexibility as you will be dealing with more of a closed system 3) if a fix is needed, good luck getting anyone to tend to it within your timeframe --Larry ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: VM Ware With VMware you can run multiple operating systems on a single machine. WITHOUT REBOOTING! Mix Linux / Windows / Novell virtual machines at the same time. Free trial click here:http://www.vmware.com/wl/offer/358/0 _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
