VSO has selected Google Postini Services to reduce the IT overhead of managing spam. VSO is the world’s leading independent international development organisation that works through volunteers to fight poverty in developing countries.
Business Challenges
Today, the charity has almost 1,500 skilled professionals working in 34 counties from Africa to Asia, South America to the South Pacific. Volunteers’ skills range from teachers and accountants to social workers, health professionals and farmers. Underpinning VSO’s global communication is a high reliance on email. “With offices in remote parts of the world, email is key to enabling VSO’s work,” explains David Sims, technical services manager, VSO.
“With poor communication infrastructures in many of the locations in which VSO operates, excellent email facilities are essential to communicate both internally and with partner organisations, including governments and community groups.”
However, many of the organisation’s locations were causing significant problems in the delivery of legitimate email. With an office in the Pacific Island of Vanuatu, a primary source of much global spam, VSO was having its sites automatically blacklisted by email monitoring services. This problem was replicated in sites across the world, resulting in severe communication problems.
Furthermore, as a result of the charity’s work in the field of HIV and AIDS, many legitimate emails included words often banned by spam filters. VSO’s IT team was struggling to achieve a balance between effective spam filtering and blocking genuine messages.
VSO was using Clearswift Mimesweeper, which was managed internally. As Sims explains, “Using the default settings, too much genuine email was blocked. For example, legitimate business emails from Vietnam that referred to the national currency—the Dong—were automatically blocked.”
The organisation was spending huge amounts of time maintaining its own blocking lists. But failure to include certain words resulted in a deluge of spam. “From managing lists, to checking the file of blocked emails for genuine messages and managing spam, the team of five was spending upwards of half a man day, every day, just to keep the email service up and running. It was unacceptable,” Sims confirms.
The Solution
VSO’s decision to move to an alternative email security solution was driven by the appointment of a new web hosting provider. “The deal included an offer for a MessageLabs managed service,” he says. “So VSO decided to assess other options in the market.”
Having consulted other organisations within a consortium of international charities, VSO quickly discovered widespread issues with email latency in the some managed services. Working with Google Enterprise Partner, Ancoris, VSO opted instead for a trial of the Google Postini Services with a group of ten users. The Google Message Security on-demand service was activated with a simple modification to the Domain Name System (DNS) mail exchange record to redirect messages from one of VSO domain’s through Google’s data centres.
The results with Google Message Security demonstrated the value of the cloud computing service. Google’s patented technology protects email systems from a wide range of attacks filtering out spam, viruses, directory harvest attacks (DHA), and phishing attempts—all in real-time. “The domain used for the trial was very heavily spammed, and Google Message Security immediately reduced spam levels without blocking genuine email,” Sims confirms.
The Results
By redirecting all VSO domains through Google data centres, the organisation has immediately overcome the problems associated with blacklisting emails from its remote locations, such as Vanuatu. “Now everything is run through Google’s Postini Services this completely eliminates the blacklisting problem,” he says.
Furthermore, the service empowers users to manage their own email. “Google Message Security enables VSO’s 900 users to customise their own white and black lists. 30,000 emails a day are sent to us—only 5,000 of which are genuine. Users can also check their own accounts if expected emails have not been delivered, which relieves pressure on the IT team,” Sims explains
Indeed, by moving from an in-house solution to the cloud service, VSO has transformed the effectiveness of the email service and released significant time within the IT team. Sims confirms, “VSO IT team now spends less than half a man day each month on email, which is a significant financial benefit.”
Using Google Postini Services’s real-time reporting, VSO also has instant insight into volumes of spam blocked across its various domains. As a result of this information, the charity has been able to reduce its overall number of domains. “In the majority of cases Google is blocking upwards of 75% of email. In one domain, the reports revealed it was 100% spam, so it is no longer worth paying to renew that domain name, which is a saving,” he says.
Sims concludes, “Google Message Security is supporting VSO very effectively, reducing the number of genuine emails blocked while ensuring very low levels of spam. Critically, it has ended the blacklisting problem, enabling the charity to communicate effectively with offices throughout the world.”
“Google Message Security enables VSO’s 900 users to customise their own white and black lists. 30,000 emails a day are sent to us—only 5,000 of which are genuine. Users can also check their own accounts if expected emails have not been delivered, which relieves pressure on the IT team.”
Results at a Glance
- Google Postini Services have reduced the IT overhead from half a man day every day, to half a man day a month
- Remote sites are no longer blacklisted ensuring greater delivery of genuine emails
- Users can manage their own white and black lists, taking control of their own email
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