Each filtering approach has strengths and weaknesses, and the most useful products let you combine filtering schemes to catch the maximum number of unwanted messages. However, if you apply these tools too aggressively (or if your users send each other business-related messages about mortgages, Viagra, or radio-controlled miniracers), you might find that your antispam solution filters out some legitimate mail. Therefore, you need to select a product that lets you choose what happens to messages it tags as spam. Most products offer two choices: You can throw away the message, or you can mark the message with some type of tag that identifies it as spam and let it through the filter. The latter method is useful if you can get your users to apply mailbox-level rules (e.g., to automatically dump into a junk mail folder messages with "[SPAM]" in the header). Another option that some antispam products use is to quarantine spam messages in a mailbox or public folder so that users can check for legitimate messages. This approach means less work for the administrator. Spam messages remain in the quarantine folder for an administrator-defined period, and if no one claims them, the tool removes them. You can also use the quarantine feature to double-check your filter settings after you first install the product: Watch which messages the filter marks incorrectly as spam, and fine-tune your settings accordingly.
Backup and Recovery Software
Although Windows includes the capable NTBackup tool, which can back up and restore Exchange databases, the number of major third-party backup packages might surprise you. As useful as NTBackup is, it doesn't do everything. For example, it doesn't do a particularly good job of scheduling backups, and its reporting and filtering capabilities are limited. Third-party vendors have stepped in to fill the breach by offering backup software with a wide range of capabilities, from single-server backups to disk to data-center-scale backups (e.g., simultaneously backing up Exchange data from dozens of servers to a large tape library).
The fundamental question to ask when evaluating backup products for Exchange is simple: Is the product Exchange-aware? In other words, does it use the Exchange backup APIs to read and write Exchange data? Exchange-aware backup programs support online backups and provide a way to replay transaction logs when you do a restore. Many backup products don't support Exchange directly, so you have to add an Exchange agent of some kind.
After you've narrowed the field to those products that work with Exchange, you're likely to make your decision based on personal preference for a vendor. Cost can also be a factor, of course, as can the vendor's reputation for software quality and support. Because backup products are so important, I usually recommend testing prospective products in a lab environment to find out how well they work on your network and whether the administrative interface and reporting options suit your needs. Of course, you need to test restores, too, not just backups. Most small sites still use Microsoft's NTBackup utility; VERITAS Software's VERITAS BackupExec for Windows Servers (from which Microsoft developed NTBackup) and VERITAS NetBackup DataCenter.
Everything Else
Other useful products are available for use with Exchange, as well as some that appear to be useful but are often more trouble than they're worth. Here's a quick summary of some other add-on product categories:
- Products that add disclaimers to email messages. Although not everyone agrees about the worth of these disclaimers, some firms (particularly in the UK, for some reason) insist on having them. The ideal product in this category lets you apply disclaimers to messages based on sender, recipient, or content. Most disclaimer products work with SMTP mail only; a few can also handle MAPI or X.400 mail.
- Products that connect one POP3 mailbox to your Exchange server so that you can leverage one (usually dial-up) ISP account for an entire organization. These products work better in theory than in practice. (Microsoft includes a similar function in its Small Business Server—SBS—edition of Exchange that works fairly well.) In most situations, setting up SMTP dequeuing works better and costs less. (See the Simpler-Webb "Exchange - Dequeue" FAQ at http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_dq.htm for more information about how to set up dequeuing.)
- Spell-checking products for OWA 2000 and OWA 5.5. Microsoft includes a spell checker with OWA 2003, but third parties have stepped in to add spell checkers to earlier OWA versions. These tools give OWA spell-checking capabilities similar to Outlook's—a real boon to those who believe, as Andrew Jackson did, that "it's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word." Messageware, Rupp Technology, and SpellChecker.net offer spelling checkers that plug into OWA 2000 or OWA 5.5 and provide server-side spell-checking.
Microsoft has incorporated a ton of features into Exchange since its original release. It's almost hard to recognize the original Exchange 4.0 feature set in the wealth of goodies included in Exchange 2003. However, to get the most functionality from Exchange, you might need to investigate third-party add-on programs. Fortunately, a thriving market exists for these add-on products, and as long as you check carefully the capabilities and vendor histories of the products you consider, you'll likely find just what you need.
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