What is our primary use case?
It is an effective email filter, however, it's increased over time since they have new features that expand the offering. We use it for more security-based uses.
How has it helped my organization?
We are able to report on various different odds and ends as we see some increase in spam. We do so using the base and logic that's built into it and it is helpful. It allows us to use some deep learning features to proactively block spam. It's really been one of the most effective spam filters that I've worked with for an on-premises solution.
The Link Lock feature with SpamTitan Plus has been great. We're all pretty familiar with the technology. That said, as we work throughout our day, we're moving fast and people won't always spend the time to diagnose potential danger before they click. This is why that feature alone saved us tremendously.
There are a couple of incidents where we had to do triage when somebody clicked on a link. The Link Lock feature prevents anything bad from happening. It stops it right at the gate. It gets people to actively think and also helps us train our staff. We get reports of, "oh, you know this, why am I seeing this prompt?" It naturally puts that little bit of a mental block in between the process, and that alone is tremendous. It's overwhelmingly beneficial just as a general-purpose mail filter. We saw benefits from it immediately.
We typically won't roll out a new product to all users. We did some initial testing, rolled it out to some of the staff, and eventually rolled it out to all the staff. It's still highly beneficial.
What is most valuable?
SpamTitan Plus is another feature that we use, but it's primarily an email filter or email security facilitating appliance.
The features that we're finding to be most valuable are mostly those that leverage the quarantine and some of the reporting functions. We like all the blacklist details and the day-to-day reports that it generates for spam and users. All of that is highly tunable, which is much appreciated.
The new SpamTitan Plus with the Link Lock feature is great. We implemented it and use it as well.
We use SpamTitan's geo-blocking feature. It allows us to block spam emails that enter our network and servers and reduces our spam intake. Some of those features are also fantastic as they enable us to report on, for example, who's the most active spam relays. We can see all IPs when going into the console. We've integrated a process where we review SpamTitan and then add those kinds of details in order to block both efforts. If a user has any issues, I can use the reporting feature and see what is being blocked through geo-blocking or what is being blocked by our firewall appliance.
It saves us time. All of our changes are really pretty quick. As far as time-saving goes, if I compare it to a previous solution like Postini, which is an old Google product that was very similar, SpamTitan is easier to navigate. When I started to use SpamTitan, I discovered that it was actually much easier to administer than Postini, which helped save admin time.
In terms of geo-blocking, most of the reporting functionality is baked into SpamTitan, it relays all those details and shows us what IPs are relaying spam. We go through a process where we start wide, and we don't open up a lot due to the geo IP blocking. It can be really dangerous if we don't use that sparingly. By looking at the reports that SpamTitan generates, we can go and add those details to the geo-blocking feature and make some decisions based on that. This is mission-critical. It's the first line of defense. Email is something that every organization leaves exposed to the internet and it's constantly being attacked. Email is where the number one cause of phishing scams originate which is why it's 110% mission-critical.
SpamTitan helped save employees time by not having them sort through junk and spam emails. Being able to create that and have it generate the quarantine reports, keeps everything consolidated. I can dial it in to what I like. If I want to go extreme or want to go light, it gives me those options.
Quite a bit of time was previously spent sorting through unwanted junk. That was one of the biggest complaints. When I started to dig into it, I was pretty amazed at how quickly I was able to rectify just going through the console. It has options too for being able to go and administer user accounts, so as an admin, I can go through and make decisions and choices before the user even sees it. Typically, we require that people check their quarantine at least once or twice a day. As an admin, I may go through and see what is happening before the end-user notices it. With one person we can tackle that task versus everyone in the company having to do it individually, which compounds exponentially.
The spam catch rate and false positives before versus after implementation were night and day. When I first started it, they hadn't done a lot of the tuning. Then, once I started to ratchet down the tuning it changed overnight. At that point, I was getting compliments from the staff.
What needs improvement?
They really just need to continue to roll out new features. They constantly develop this product. We get updates at least once a quarter and sometimes multiple times per quarter. We investigate new trends for spam relays or malware, and the SpamTitan team constantly adds new features to it to address what we find. They constantly improve what they've got, which we appreciate and we hope they continue to do.
They can increase some of the reporting around user logins. In order for us to make that determination, we have to pull down reports. They could make it a bit easier.
The finesse of the reporting could probably be improved. Being able to filter and generate reports and being able to ship those reports to different users would be ideal. It's got some of those features built-in, however, increasing some of that could be beneficial. For the work that we do and with the way we administer it, oftentimes we have to pull down logs and rig through the logs to find out what happened. Maybe some additional reporting as to why it flagged spam would be useful and the reasoning behind why it actually flagged email X. Or, if we get a false positive, then explain why. Right now, we do a manual process where we go through the logs. If they increase the level of reporting, we’d pretty much have a perfect product.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for about six to seven years. It was implemented before I started with the company.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is great. I've never had a problem with it.
I had problems with Postini on a couple of different occasions, however, it was also an off-premises solution too. I also had my WAN that's involved in that connection and Google's far-end servers. With this solution running on-premises, I forget what they run an OS on it. However, it's a Unix-like operating system that runs well, it will process updates, and we've never had an issue with an update. It just keeps going.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scalability, I've never really investigated it as we really didn't have much of a need to. I do know that it's got high availability features and it's pretty easy to set up. It's also got an API call that you can implement with it too. If you wanted to manage it with some other kind of NMS or something like that, you can, as it has those capabilities. We don't particularly have a need for it. There's less of an attack vector.
How are customer service and support?
SpamTitan's support is amazing. They answer any questions you have 24/7. The way they can connect remotely to help diagnose problems is great. I've never had a bad experience with their support team.
I can't think of another vendor that I work with that has better support than SpamTitan. They either give me a solution, give a workaround, or explain what's going on nearly immediately.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
The last solution I used was Postini before Google retired it. That was almost a decade ago. I don't think Postini is still around anymore.
I didn't necessarily make the switch, it was already in production. I'm not really interested in another product. Purely from a support standpoint alone, in a world where customer support is all but dead, SpamTitan consistently delivers.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved in the initial setup, however, when they deployed it, it was very light. They didn't take advantage of a lot of the features and it's got a very deep feature set too.
Some of my support engagements are purely just asking questions, however, they never give me a whole look at the manual or pawn me off. They answer the question almost immediately.
In terms of the environment we have, it pretty much sits at the gate for all of our inbound emails and it's used for the entire company. If you categorize this into a smaller to medium business category, it handles less than 50 users.
Other than standard updates, this solution doesn't require any maintenance. We have five or so people who can handle the maintenance aspect. They are there mostly to maintain the quarantine, watch, regulate the product, and continue to tune it over time.
What was our ROI?
The ROI from a SpamTitan license is pretty good.
It pays for itself. If it mitigated one event then it's paid for itself. These days, if ransomware gets into your network and takes over, you can have a really, really hard time. The cost per the ROI on it is tremendous for sure.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is very affordable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I didn't look into other options. I really didn't feel like there was a need to.
What other advice do I have?
We have it on a single server on-premises. It's the latest release.
We do not use ArcTitan or EncryptTitan. We have other solutions that we work with for those use cases. I would use them if we didn't already have that kind of other processes that we look at. We just don't have a business need for it.
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. I recommend it to anyone that's looking for a solution like this. I'd advise potential users to just buy it and figure it out and they'll be there to help you. Their support is excellent. I cannot say enough good things about them.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.