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Sophos announces all-in-one virtual e-mail appliance


Johannesburg, 09 Feb 2011

IT security and data protection company, Sophos, has announced the availability of its Virtual Email Security Appliance, bringing strong security, data protection and administration ease to the latest VMware virtual environments.

It delivers on the growing popularity of businesses looking for cost savings, responsiveness, scalability and continuity through virtualisation, from a trusted brand in the industry.

The new virtual e-mail appliance incorporates Sophos' integrated protection and simplified management, and provides a solution that combines data loss prevention (DLP) and e-mail encryption with proactive spam and malware protection.

Benefits of the Virtual Email Security Appliances include:

* Rapid provisioning, responsiveness and change management using preconfigured virtual machine profiles and a standard Open Virtualisation Format (OVF) distribution file;
* Proactive threat protection via Sophos' Behavioural Genotype technology that provides anti-malware detection of zero-day threats;
* Zero setup, offline accessible data protection with integrated SPX e-mail encryption and DLP using pre-packaged sensitive data intelligence supplied and updated via SophosLabs;
* Clutter-free inboxes with Sophos anti-spam technologies, such as Sender Genotype and Live in-the-cloud anti-spam lookups that block over 99% of spam;
* Automation of most routine maintenance tasks with Sophos managed appliance service that includes automatic updates, monitoring, alerting, and remote remediation if needed;
* Improved IT efficiency through a streamlined three-clicks-to-anywhere task-based administration interface that relies on wizards to make policy and configuration simple; and
* Complete interoperability and clustering with Sophos' hardware appliances and other Sophos security products.

The new virtual e-mail appliance is one of many Sophos initiatives focused on supporting virtualised data centres and endpoints with additional virtual appliance products slated for later this year.

“Sophos customers as well as analysts, such as Gartner, agree that virtualisation is much more than a tactical cost-cutting trend,” says Brett Myroff, CEO of regional Sophos distributor, Sophos South Africa. Gartner notes that virtualisation is creating a strategic shift in overall IT modernisation, with virtual machines improving responsiveness and delivery within an enterprise 10, 20, or even 30 times faster than traditional hardware and software server solutions.

According to VMware, server virtualisation allows organisations to be more efficient, reducing hardware and operating costs by as much as 50% and energy costs by 80%. All while reducing the time it takes to provision new servers by up to 70%.

“Businesses are saving considerable time and effort virtualising parts of their data centres, but have been traditionally faced with limited options for comprehensive e-mail security. We believe the Sophos Virtual Email Appliance provides organisations with the most complete option for e-mail security, providing reliable protection against all forms of spam and malware while also addressing the latest demands in safeguarding data through our SPX encryption and DLP capabilities,” Myroff says.

“All of these capabilities are delivered through our managed e-mail security appliance platform, which provides 24x7 monitoring of e-mail traffic and system health. The new offering will give our customers and the market data protection with less administrative burden, greater peace of mind and significant savings.”

Existing Sophos Email Security Appliance customers can tap into the latest offering using their existing e-mail appliance licence.

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Sophos South Africa

NetXactics, trading as Sophos South Africa, is a South African-based company focused on the provision of security solutions. It is the master distributor for UK-based Sophos, one of the leaders in the provision of network access control and endpoint, e-mail and Web security and control solutions for the corporate environment. For more information, visit Sophos South Africa at http://www.sophos.co.za.

Sophos

Sophos enables enterprises worldwide to secure and control their IT infrastructure. Our network access control, endpoint, Web and e-mail solutions simplify security to provide integrated defences against malware, spyware, intrusions, unwanted applications, spam, policy abuse, data leakage and compliance drift. With over 20 years of experience, we protect over 100 million users in nearly 150 countries with our reliably engineered security solutions and services. Recognised for our high level of customer satisfaction, we have an enviable history of industry awards, reviews and certifications. Sophos is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts and Oxford, UK.

Editorial contacts

Adriaan du Plessis
Me Talk Pretty
(011) 447 3785
metalkpretty@telkomsa.net
Brett Myroff
Sophos South Africa
(011) 444 4000
brettm@sophos.co.za