The Company: Goldman Equipment LLC
When Goldman Equipment opened its doors in Waterproof, Louisiana 60 years ago, farmers still used mules. Today, Goldman Equipment LLC has eight stores selling the most modern agricultural equipment. They are a full-line dealer for John Deere and Valley irrigation equipment, plus they sell or rent an extensive inventory of commercial sprayers and Liebrecht commercial agricultural ditching machines. Their Technologies Department evaluates topography, tests and analyzes soil, and determines the best fertilizers needed to maximize crop yield. Sixty years ago, communications consisted of telephones and mail. Today Goldman Equipment has an IT department in their Waterproof headquarters and relies on email as a major means of communication.
The Problem: Establishing a secure in-house mail server
Initially, Goldman Equipment’s email was hosted at another company. Over the years, the email system became clogged with spam. Hours were wasted culling the legitimate messages from the chaff. The outsourcing company that handled the email constantly applied new filters to the system, but it couldn’t keep up. A major communications apparatus was becoming a major pain.
Goldman Equipment’s IT department basically consists of Blaine Merriet, company data processing manager. He’s responsible for keeping the system up and running, planning and implementing new equipment, and solving computer problems at the company’s eight locations.
All servers - document image storage, email, and business systems - are located at the main store in Waterproof. Currently, Blaine is replacing old servers with Dell PowerEdge 5 servers running Windows Server 3. The business system server runs on UNIX. Satellite stores all have basic equipment as well as VTN routers to connect them to the servers. Merriet analyzed the spam problem, price-per-mailbox, number of users, and decided to bring it all in-house on a Dell PowerEdge mail server.
“Even though we had filters on the hosted email server, we still got a lot of spam,” Merriet ex-
plained. “With regular spam, image spam, PDF spam, phishing and a host of viruses, worms and
Trojan-horses, I knew we needed a more effective solution. I eliminated the security software
because they didn’t offer the levels of protection I wanted.
“I began researching email security appliances. I read all the reviews, compared the features and
benefits, checked out the prices. To my surprise, the appliance with the fewest bad reviews was
one that, frankly, I’d never heard of: Mail-SeCure from PineApp.”
The Solution: Mail-SeCure Total Perimeter Security
“Before I brought email in-house, we were having a terrible problem with image spam,” Merriet
confided. “The filters they used just couldn’t deal with the problem. Image spam was clogging
our system and wasting valuable bandwidth.
“Once I installed the Mail-SeCure appliance to our network, image spam disappeared. It blocked
all the spam and phishing schemes while letting all legitimate email through without a problem.
Plus Mail-SeCure’s zero-hour protection automatically protects us from viruses, worms and Tro-
jan horses.
One of the determining factors in choosing Mail-Secure was pricing. Since Goldman Equipment
isn’t a large corporation, Blaine was mindful of getting the most security for his IT dollar. When
he discovered he could purchase a Mail-SeCure appliance with annual license renewals for less
than competitors were charging for license renewals alone, the decision became a no-brainer.
“To date, Mail-SeCure has been 100 percent efficient,” Merriet concluded. “It works exactly like
I wanted. Even installation was a snap. It worked right out of the box. All I had to do was enter
our domain name and we were ready to go. It doesn’t get any easier than that.”
About the Mail-SeCure Appliance
Mail-SeCure provides total perimeter security
It is located outside the network, so it blocks threats like spam and viruses before they reach the
network. It creates a buffer between the Internet and an organization's email systems by using a
complete system of perimeter anti-spam/anti-virus security layers.
Mail-SeCure proactively protects networks against targeted and non-targeted email threats
The appliance includes multi-layered anti-spam and anti-virus systems that proactively protect organizations and enterprises from both targeted email threats (spam, viruses, worms, Trojan-horses) and non-targeted email-related threats (mail-bombing, denial of service and backscatter). Anti-spam engines include pattern detection, zombie detection, zero-hour detection, IP reputation and image spam defense, plus a heuristic and a Bayesian engine to recognize spam in any form and block it. Anti-virus engines include three signature based, one heuristic based and one zero-hour detection mechanism.
Mail-SeCure requires no updated filters and firmware to meet new threats
Most email security solutions require organizations to update their software or firmware to meet
new threats. Since it takes time to identify new threats and find appropriate protection, companies are left vulnerable. This is especially critical considering many threats last less than a day. By the time security firms find a cure, it’s already too late. Mail-SeCure’s anti-spam/anti-virus engines protect organizations right out of the box; Its zero-hour capabilities automatically protect a network against current and future spam, phishing and virus threats. In addition, its pattern recognition analysis spots spam in any form - including image spam, PDF spam, Excel spam and other emerging threats - and blocks it. With Mail-SeCure, organizations are automatically protected from day one.
Mail-SeCure saves network bandwidth
Unlike most competitors, Mail-SeCure is located outside the network. As a result it blocks and
quarantines spam and before it ever reaches the network, which saves valuable bandwidth. This
is especially important since image spam (PDF, JPEG, GIF, Excel) requires megabytes of storage. Reports indicate image spam now accounts for half (or more) of all spam on networks. Some companies complain that image spam is clogging their mail servers and bringing them to their knees.
Mail-Secure provides simple-to-use management tools
The appliance provides administrators with easy-to-use tools to enforce advanced local policy as
well as a mechanism to control and manage mail flow, so it is also easy to set up and use almost
immediately.
Mail-SeCure costs less
Many customers state they purchased a Mail-SeCure appliance and yearly license for less money
than many competitors charge for the annual license alone. However, the main reason that Goldman Equipment made the purchase was that Mail-SeCure simply worked better than the others.
For more information on how Mail-SeCure can offer your company total perimeter security, visit
http://www.pineapp.com.
**
“Mail-SeCure has been 100 percent efficient. It works exactly like I wanted. Even installation was a snap. All I had to do was enter our domain name and we were ready to go.”
Blaine Merriet, data processing manager, Goldman Equipment
**
IN A BRIEF
The Customer:
Goldman Equipment LLC
The Challenge:
Block system clogging image-spam and free up the company’s bandwidth
The Solution:
A Mail-SeCure 2020 unit was deployed and prevented spam and viruses from day one. Zero interruptions.