Know your gear
Symantec Messaging Gateway is an easy-to-use email virus protection appliance that delivers effective and accurate anti-spam protection. With no per user fees and available as a VMware-based virtual appliance, Symantec Messaging Gateway can be implemented on your existing hardware, making it one of the most affordable gateway appliance solution available.
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Symantec Messaging Gateway 8340 - security appliance is rated
4.30 out of
5 by
6.
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Alex Wu from
Simple to use, great at blocking spam and easy to set up
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use it as an email gateway for security. We use it for blocking spam.
What is most valuable?
The solution overall is quite good.
The solution is a leader in anti-spam email products.
The performance is great. You can block 99% of spam emails. It's very effective.
The solution runs quite well.
The setup is pretty simple.
What needs improvement?
The issue with the solution has more to do with China than the product itself. Since it was purchased by Broadcomm, we've found there's been a general slide in terms of the local services we have access to and we are considering replacing them.
In a later release, it would be nice if the messaging gateway supported the cluster feature. We'd really like clustering as an option.
If you have installed the two messaging gateways, you cannot use the high-availability features of the two products. There needs to be higher availability. Other products provide a cluster feature, however, Symantec for the most part does not offer this.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for about ten years now. It's been a decade.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. We don't have issues with glitches and there aren't really any bugs. I've never experienced it crash or fail. It's reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't needed to scale it, so I can't speak to the solution's level of scalability. It's not something we've attempted to do.
We have about 80 people in our organization using the product.
How are customer service and technical support?
I haven't opened a ticket from the technical support for a long time. We haven't really needed the support from assistance, to be honest. I can't really speak to their level of service at this time.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
It was ten years ago, and I was at a different organization, however, I do recall that we used Fortigate at that time.
I also currently use Symantec's Mail Security for Exchange. I use that for my emails alongside the Messaging Gateway.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup isn't complex. It's quite straightforward. I find it quite simple, as I have a decade of experience using it under my belt.
Deployment to my virtual machine only took about 30 minutes.
I hand over the maintenance to another team.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the deployment myself. I have a wealth of experience with the product. I don't feed outside help from consultants or integrators.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If you would like to enable Symantec's Content Encryption, it's considered an extra feature. You need to buy it separately. I personally just have the anti-spam, antivirus and Premium Content Controller. These features are at no additional cost. New users just need to be aware that certain premium features will need to be purchased.
What other advice do I have?
We're just an end-user and customer. We don't have a special business relationship with the company.
I have the solution running on my virtual machine.
The solution is a really good product as far as email security is concerned.
I'd recommend the solution.
Overall, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-09-24T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Farrukh Dawoodani from
Solid and stable product, great support, highly scalable
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for its advanced virus protection, phishing and other features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for 1 year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a solid and stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable product. We have deployed it for organizations with 200-5000 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
The support is really great.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Sophos Email other than Symantec Messaging Gateway.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is pretty much straight forward.
What about the implementation team?
We did the deployment of the product ourselves and it was a quick one.
What was our ROI?
Sometimes the solution picks up false positive for viruses during scans.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's a bit expensive but they have licensing models to meet customer needs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
It's a bit expensive compared to its competitor Barracuda Email Security Gateway but cheaper than Sophos Email.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this product.
I rate Symantec Messaging Gateway an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2020-12-14T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1541949 from
A stable on-premise email security solution that's easy to manage, but support could be better
What is our primary use case?
We use it as a perimeter gateway where it scans for spam. We use all the features and configure all the features, like malware and content filtering. But most of the requests come for content filtering, where we need filters based on some specific words or subjects or based on the reports that come from government agencies.
How has it helped my organization?
It helps us by protecting us from spam, and it also checks for viruses.
What is most valuable?
I like that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage. The reporting function has all the features we're looking for, and we are fine with that.
What needs improvement?
Support could be better. What's also lacking when you compare it with Proofpoint and other threat protection solutions is that it does the basic stuff, but we need more advanced threat handling.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been dealing with Symantec Messaging Gateway for about seven or eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have used it for many years, and I never faced any issues. Even if it crashes, let's say the VM itself rebooted or something, then it does Linux basic things and it comes back online.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have a couple of nodes extended at the moment, and so far, we haven't had any issues with configuration, replication, or when the firmware is updated. It works fine.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support was good before they moved to Broadcom. After it went to Broadcom, the support quality degraded.
How was the initial setup?
It was deployed before I started working on it, but I feel like it was easy.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. I would tell potential users that it's simple and easy to configure, deploy, and manage.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Symantec Messaging Gateway a seven.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Pedro Chidumo from
Is easy to install and is stable and scalable
What is our primary use case?
We use it for content filtering and malware protection.
What is most valuable?
Symantec Messaging Gateway is stable and scalable.
Installation is easy, and the deployment and maintenance can be done by one administrative person.
What needs improvement?
It is a nice product but is not user friendly in terms of the graphical interface. It is poor and is not rich in terms of the human interface.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using it for a month.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable because we use a physical appliance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability depends on how much you are willing to pay. You always have to pay if you have to scale the product or increase the number of machines. We have about 1,000 fixed users for Symantec Messaging Gateway.
How was the initial setup?
Installation is easy, but we needed some configurations, so it took a week.
For the deployment and maintenance, we have one administrative person.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it ourselves using remote assistance from our supplier.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of Symantec Messaging Gateway is too expensive in general. However, the appliance also includes the price of the license in the same bundle.
What other advice do I have?
I haven't been using it for very long, and in my short experience, it has been a good product. I would rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-05-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1669458 from
Easy to set up with good patching and reliable performance
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for security - to protect us from malware and to have anti-spam, content filtering. It's for that initial inspection of email before it gets into our environment.
What is most valuable?
The solution is stable and the performance is good.
Technical support, under Symantec, was good.
They were great at keeping up with patching.
The product could scale.
The initial setup wasn't too difficult.
What needs improvement?
Having the control center in just one place was difficult. Now that they are moving to the cloud, it will be less of an issue.
The solution is slightly outdated. The version that we have now is due to the fact that the company hasn't moved up to the latest version. They're on 10.6 and the latest version is 10.74 or something like that. They were four versions behind.
The biggest problem is it's an on-prem product and we're trying to get out of having equipment in data centers. The company wants the reliability that the cloud offers. That's the main justification for leaving that product. I know they offer a cloud solution, however, when you have Microsoft having it as part of a package and you're already kind of paying for something, it makes sense to move over, rather than have two solutions doing the same thing in one company.
For how long have I used the solution?
I worked for the company that I'm working at now, for 19 years, however, I was gone for six years. In that 19 years, I had about 10 years where I was using Symantec Messaging Gateway.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good. It's not buggy or glitchy. It works well. The performance is good.
I haven't messed with it in six years, and prior to that, there were not really any issues. It was a pretty good product, and they kept up with security patches. I noticed that we have a product that looks for vulnerabilities. If it's alarming, Symantec will come back and say, "No, we're good, we don't have that code in our product." They seem to have been pretty good with that.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It was pretty easy to scale. You just added more scanners. The one downside was you could only have one control center unless you wanted to manually keep two different control centers at two different data centers, and configure them the same.
That said, you'll never 100% have them alike. That's the one downside is that you're stuck with, no matter how you scale your scanners, in the DMZ, and you still have that one control center inside. That's how we deployed it. If we lose that data center, we lose that control center. There are some white papers out there now on how to make that change to a different control center, so it is possible, however, it's been a long time since I've looked at that.
We have about 15,000 end-users on the solution currently.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support was fine when it was Symantec. It might have changed since it was bought out by Broadcom. I can't speak to that.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We're moving over to Microsoft Defender P2.
I'm on a project now, however, the hardware's old as we bought it originally back when you bought the appliance from Symantec. Due to the fact that the hardware's old, and since the company's already paying for Microsoft, we've decided to just go full-on with the Defender P2 license, and pull that old hardware, and take the Symantec Messaging Gateway out. The goal is to get everything into the cloud.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup isn't too complex. That said, there are some challenges when you start stacking on different policies and stuff like that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I didn't know the pricing when we bought it, and that was a long time ago. I can't speak to the exact costs.
What other advice do I have?
We are currently on the oldest version that's supported. It might be around version 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-12-09T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Marlon Coelho from
The solution is easy to deploy, and stable, but has an outdated interface
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case of the solution is to future inbound and outbound emails, applying content, filtering policies, and power policies. Basically, the content filter is based on the dictionary words, and most of them integrate SMG with DLP to quarantine emails which violates the data protection policies.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is the content filtering policies because the solution offers huge options for configuration, such as hardware manipulation, et cetera, and the dictionaries make the work easier.
What needs improvement?
The solution interface is from 2003 and is outdated. Symantec Messaging Gateway needs to update the interface.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I give the stability of the solution a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I give the solution a five out of ten for scalability.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support capabilities are good, but the time response is not good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. I give the initial setup a nine out of ten.
Without counting the deployment time of the appliance, and we only look at the software portion, I believe three hours is sufficient for initial deployment without any advanced policies.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment because the solution can avoid a lot of phishing and infections in our environment.
What other advice do I have?
I give the solution a seven out of ten because it is a good solution for email threats, but it is becoming an outdated solution. In the near future, all companies will move their end-spend solutions and their email solutions to the cloud. To maintain an on-premise application in an environment now, I believe is not the best investment.
We require one analyst and one specialist for the deployment and maintenance of the solution.
The solution is becoming outdated because companies are moving towards cloud applications. I believe this solution will become deprecated in the near future because the solution does not integrate with the new COG mail solutions such as Office 365. We can manage the inbound and outbound emails, but we can not have full integration with these solutions.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-01-23T00:00:00-05:00