Mirapoint Message Director Offers an Added Layer of Protection

Mirapoint Monday announced Message Director. The product is designed to secure any messaging environment and is aimed at both enterprises and ISPs.

Message Director is a scalable and easy-to-deploy messaging solution that can be added to any enterprise or service provider messaging environment. It is not a mail server but rather an extra layer between the Internet and the mail server, Patrick Hayes, product manager for Message Director told ServerWatch.

Mirapoint Monday announced Message Director. The product is designed to secure any messaging environment and is aimed at both enterprises and ISPs.

Message Director sits at the SMTP routing layer and provides a screen to protect against viruses and spam. It also provides content filtering, and policies and reports, Hayes said.

Because Message Director sits in front of the SMTP server, it functions without impacting the client and is able to work with any standards-based client.

Mirapoint uses Trend Micro’s InterScan VirusWall and InterScan eManager solutions for its antivirus filter. With this technology, it detects viruses in real time at the gateway, performs automatic virus pattern updates, and uses an ICSA-certified virus engine.

Message Director’s spam filter blocks unwanted e-mail on a network-wide level, and automatically updates spam sources and keyword lists.

Content filtering can be set to look for key words in both the message body or header. Filtering is set at the domain level for inbound and outbound mail. Actions that can be taken on filtered messages include deletion, rerouting, and bouncing it back to the sender, as well as a combination of the previous.

Unified logging features offered by Message Director include a central point of access to logging and the capability to integrate the product with billing and provisioning systems.

Other key components of Message Director include a secure shell, mail queue management, and LDAP-based routing.

Message Director can process 68,000 messages per hour or about 1.6 million per day. That is roughly the equivalent of three sendmail boxes, Hayes said.

Message Director’s benefits specific to ISPs include support for an unlimited number of domains and the capability to set up rules for different domains.

BMW was one of the first companies to use Message Director. The automobile company has been beta testing the Mirapoint product since it decided to replace its six IBM AIX servers.

Message Director will be generally available in April. It will be priced starting at $26,000, with additional costs for the anitvirus functionality.

Founded in 1997, Mirapoint designs and manufactures specialized, dedicated Internet messaging solutions optimized for fast deployment in service provider and enterprise environments.

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