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FAQs

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SHS Migration FAQs

IS has recently partnered with global security leader Symantec. This partnership will see the introduction of new services to IS’ current suite. The most notable being Symantec’s world class, globally leading email security solution, which will replace the existing Mail Filter solution in the coming months. This FAQ serves to answer some of the questions you may have about this technology upgrade.

1. WHY DID IS CHOOSE SYMANTEC?

IS has spent many months researching and working with the best available email security and archiving solutions in the market. After careful consideration, IS chose Symantec. Symantec Hosted Services is the global leader in both email security and email archiving. The service is offered worldwide, and is well established. The functionality of both these solutions are rich and flexible, and offers true unified email management.

2. WILL THIS TECHNOLOGY UPGRADE COST ME MORE?

No, IS will give you this technology upgrade at the same price you are currently paying for your mail filter solution. The new solution is backed by a very powerful punitive SLA. If you would like to have this SLA apply to your new service, there will be a requirement to resign for the new service.

3. WHAT FUNCTIONALITY DIFFERENCE WILL THERE BE?

All of the functionality you make use of in the current solution will be available in the new solution. There will also be additional functionality available and an easy upgrade path to email archiving. Please contact your account manager for details around the archiving service.

4. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY CURRENT RULES?

The methodology behind the rule creation is different in the new solution, rules are now created to achieve certain business needs, there is also no need for complex Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus rules as these are already built in. This is a far more effective way of structuring rules. You will be required to build your rule set in the new solution. This presents an opportunity for you to review your current rule sets, remove legacy rules that no longer apply, build rule sets effectively and use them to enforce your email related acceptable use policies.

5. WHAT IF I DON’T BUILD MY RULES?

If you do not build your rule sets prior to being migrated, IS will migrate you with a default rule set. The default rule set will have spam and virus prevention enabled.

6. WHAT IF I NEED HELP ON THE NEW INTERFACE?

An online training video is available. This video covers all the email components and how they work. The link to this video can be found on the step by step migration guide.

7. WHEN DOES THIS NEW SERVICE GO LIVE IN SOUTH AFRICA?

IS is busy deploying the new infrastructure into our Data Centre. The environment will undergo thorough testing, and will go live in February 2011. Once we have gone live, we will begin migrating you from the old technology to the new technology. Additional communications will go out informing you of exact dates that your organisation will be moved. These will also contain any additional information specific to you.

8. WHAT IS THE VALIDATION LIST, AND WHY IS IT REQUIRED?

The validation list is optional, but is required to enable the following features. Firstly, it acts as a filter for inbound email. When an incoming email is received the destination address is matched to your validation list, if the destination address is not specified in the list, the email is not valid and will be bounced. Secondly, the list allows us to enable the quarantine feature. The quarantine is were all your emails that are registered as spam or are caught in your content filter are kept for a period of 14 days. These can be manually released by an administrator if required.

9. So what do i need in the meantime?

Use your admin credentials to log onto to the platform and have a look around, there is some great functionality for you to make use of. Attend some training sessions to learn more about the service and what it can do. Use the time to build structured rules that achieve your organisations goals, and create a validation list that contains all your valid inbound users email addresses. These tasks are summarised and explained in the ‘Step by Step Migration Guide’.

10. WHO CAN I SPEAK TO IF I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS?

You can direct your questions through your Account Manager, and they will be relayed to the relevant parties within IS.

17 May 2012