Category Archives: Guest Post

Anti-spam techniques, E-mail, E-mail spam, Guest Post, spam

Three Reasons to Use Cloud Anti-Spam

Guest Post by Emmanuel Carabott,  Security Research Manager at GFI Software Ltd.

GFI Software helps network administrators with network security, content security and messaging needs

Budgets are stretched thin, you already work too many hours, and you’re always trying to find a server that can run the latest requested workload.

For companies with the flexibility to take advantage of cloud-based technologies, there’s a quick and simple way to win back some time, save some money, and free up some resources on your email servers and reallocate the ones that are running your current anti-spam solution – cloud anti-spam. Here’s how:

Money

Cloud anti-spam solutions require no up-front costs, no hardware, operating system, or software investments, and operate on a simple per-user subscription model. They are a great solution for companies looking to implement anti-spam technologies without a major investment. They keep your costs low, predictable, and easy to allocate. The subscription model means you even have the option to take what has always been considered a capital expense and turn it into an operational expense, which may make your CFO as happy as your CIO would be about the budget you save.

Time

Cloud anti-spam solutions will give you back hours in your week taking care of the infrastructure, but that’s not all. The best cloud anti-spam solutions offer you a user self-service model, where each user can get a daily summary of messages that were filtered out, and can click a link in that summary to release a false positive, or log onto a web portal at any time to check for missing or delayed messages themselves. They get instant gratification and your help desk works fewer tickets related to spam. Everyone wins, except, of course, the spammers.

Resources

Spam, malware, and phishing messages don’t just cost time and money, they can consume significant server resources. Anti-spam solutions running on your email server take a lot of CPU cycles to run filter lists and scan for malware, RAM to expand all those attachments before they can be scanned, and disk space to quarantine what inevitably will be deleted. Moving that entire load to the cloud anti-spam solution frees up resources on your servers, can free up space in your racks, and will save you tons of bandwidth you can put to better use since spam is stopped before it ever reaches your border.

Companies that for legal and compliance reasons, or that prefer to maintain complete control of all aspects of the email system may not find cloud anti-spam solutions are the best fit, but for companies with the flexibility to do so, they are the right choice for IT teams looking to save money, time and resources, and who also want to provide their end users with a great email experience. You’re already stretched thin; give yourself, your team, and your budget a break by choosing a cloud anti-spam solution today.


Business Processes, Content Management, ECM, Enterprise content management, Guest Post, IT Management, Legal, Workflow

Benefits of Cloud Based ECM Systems

Guest Post by Steve Williams

Smart businesses everywhere have begun to take advantage of Enterprise Content Management (ECM). This system helps companies organize, store and retrieve eDocuments. Encompassing a variety of different programs, ECM helps businesses to organize their work flow and be prepared in case of any future litigation. Moving the ECM to the cloud presents even greater benefits.

Benefits of the Cloud

  • Security. Prevent the loss of critical data with regular backups of infrastructure hardware and more.
  • Cost. A cloud solution costs a fraction of an on-premise ECM solution. The pay-as-you go nature of cloud services also make it scalable to your needs.
  • Reliability. Cloud solutions can offer high uptime and keep planned downtimes at a minimum Access. Access all your content remotely through any device (mobile, desktop etc.)

Top 3 Benefits of ECM:

1. Improve Organization

Without an ECM system, employees may find it difficult to access records held by coworkers or find older documents. With an ECM system, the business can reduce its volume of content up to 50%. In the event of litigation, having fewer documents to search through and a more organized system helps employees and lawyers to prepare. The ECM system manages all of the data throughout its lifecycle and keeps it in one central place.

The Advantages:

  • One central location to retrieve all content.
  • Ensures compliance with new standards and policies.

For larger companies, having a central location means lawyers do not have to rush around various locations and can easily carry out the discovery process. To facilitate the legal team’s work, employees should be trained on policies regarding the various regulatory requirements or the company’s internal policies.

Prior to having an ECM system, a company would have to go through files by hand to check and see if workers were complying with the regulations. In the case of a hospital, new policies may get missed by workers. A proper ECM system could alleviate the problem by electronically tracking which employees signed new policy forms and ensure that everyone at the company is on the same page. Numerous state and federal regulations exist—each business must ensure that their employees are complying completely. Without an ECM system to track employee training and policy updates, employers are left without the safeguard they need to make sure that everyone is kept up-to-date on new regulations.

2. Prepare for Litigation

No business plans on having court battles, but in the event that it happens, being prepared early on makes litigation easier. Various regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley require that eDocuments be kept for a certain length of time. The ECM can be set to automatically put documents on hold and store them for a defined period of time. This aspect protects the documents from being deleted on purpose or by accident.

Instead of hiring out help, companies can handle litigation internally and reduce their overall cost. The system seamlessly integrates real-time updates and records prior versions of the file. Although no one intends to have a court case, preparing in advance saves the company valuable time and money.

3. Save Money

Having double copies of a file makes it more difficult for employees to access, change and use data. An ECM system works to prevent this by organizing the volumes of information in one location and with an easily searchable system. A user merely has to type in a keyword in the search box to have their file and related documents popup. Instead of having to search through documents by hand or go to different networks to find data, users have one location that they can access. Overall, this saves the company time and money spent on wages.

The Bottom Line:

Creating an ECM will require some initial spending, but overall the company will see immense savings on labor and IT infrastructure costs by moving to the cloud. If any litigation takes place, the company will save even more money on lawyers’ fees and throughout the discovery process. By being able to easily access old files, the company is protected from any allegations that they violated regulations. This protects them legally and financially.

This system also gets employees out of low-value tasks and into a role that makes the company more money. No more faxing over documents or hand-picking through old files. With a cloud-based ECM system, the program is intended to do all the work so the company does not have to hire an employee to do it.

Across the board, having a cloud-based ECM saves the company money and makes doing business more efficient. It improves the company’s ability to manage information and comply with federal regulations.