Proofpoint and VMware Team-up to Bring Enhanced Email Security and Compliance to VMware Zimbra Users

Today's Proofpoint press release (see, "Proofpoint Delivers Enhanced Security and Compliance for VMware Zimbra Email and Collaboration Solution") announces some exciting new work with VMware in which we've integrated the Proofpoint Enterprise Protection email security and Proofpoint Enterprise Privacy data loss prevention suites with the VMware Zimbra Collaboration Server.

If you're not familar with Zimbra, it's a leading open source email and collaboration solution that offers a collaboration hub for email, contacts, calendars, documents, file sharing, tasks, social media and enterprise applications. The integration offers VMware Zimbra users a whole host of best-in-class email security, regulatory compliance, email encryption, anti-phishing, data privacy and data loss prevention capabilities.

Proofpoint worked with the VMware Zimbra team to create a version of Proofpoint Enterprise that is custom-engineered to integrate to the Zimbra platform. Some of the Zimbra-specific enhancements include: A new secure-send "Zimlet" (Zimlets are new end-user functionality created through a set of open APIs) that allows users to send encrypted messages using Proofpoint Encryption. (This new Zimlet will be available in the next couple of weeks.) And features that automatically quarantine spam by learning from actions taken by end-users.

Special Introductory Offer

As part of this launch, Proofpoint is offering qualified users of the VMware Zimbra Collaboration Server virtual appliance a fully functional, 60-day trial of  Proofpoint Enterprise Protection and Proofpoint Enterprise Privacy. Qualified trial users that purchase a license for Zimbra Collaboration Server can have the trial of Proofpoint Enterprise Protection extended for additional 12 months.

(Yep, you read that right, up to a year of Proofpoint's outstanding email security capabilities for free. And, nope, we've never made this sort of offer available before.)

To register for the free 60-day trial, visit http://www.proofpoint.com/zimbra.

We're looking forward to continuing to work with the VMware Zimbra team. The team-up with Proofpoint is just one of many examples of how Zimbra is workingwith partners to deliver integrated solutions that work with the Zimbra Collaboration Server platform. You can see more in the the Zimbra Gallery and Zimbra Community (currently with more than 45,000 members). Check it out!

Happy Earth Day 2011: Thoughts on Cloud Computing, Conservation Tips and a Recycled Video from the Archives

Happy Earth Day, 2011! In keeping with this observance of making better use of our planet's resources, I wanted to share a few interesting conservation-related tips from around the web.

Over at Microsoft's Viewpoints blog, Robert Bernard has a thoughtful post on "Earth Day 2011: Cloud Computing... Can it Help?" In that post, he talks about the various ways that cloud computing can impact IT efficiency and, in turn, help create a more energy efficient world. Among his comments:

"So what is “cloud computing?” Think about the services that run on your PC or handheld device - email, websites, social networks, news services, search results, business infrastructure, banking systems, text messaging. All of these, and many more, are powered by the cloud. But this is just the beginning.  Building management systems, transportation systems, energy grids, water monitoring, ocean health tracking, air quality, crop yields, human health implications of pollution -- all of these computational resources can be delivered on demand in the cloud.

The cloud will allow us to rethink the role of IT and energy, so that we’re not just thinking about how to reduce the impact of IT, but also about how IT can reduce the impact of the other 98 percent of the energy consumed by buildings, transportation, industrial processes, etc. At Microsoft, I get to work with people and teams who can envision a highly integrated, energy-smart landscape that maximizes efficiency and performance in a resource-constrained world. Information technology is key to making that future possible."

I thought the whole piece was well worth a read.

And over at PC World, Tony Bradley shares some tips for reducing your office's impact on the environment in, "Five Ways You can Embrace Earth Day Every Day." Among his suggestions, "using newer hardware that is more environmentally-conscious and energy efficient. You can also cut down on your organization's carbon footprint by embracing virtualization so you can run multiple virtual servers from a single physical server."

Many of Proofpoint's customers have moved to the cloud computing-based or virtual versions of our security and compliance solutions, in part because of the energy, efficiency and cost advantages of those platforms. Simply consolidating multiple security features on a single platform can also reduce infrastructure and costs.

One example: Princeton Universityconsolidated multiple email security functions such as email firewall, anti-virus and anti-spam using a combination of Proofpoint's hardware and virtual appliances and saved $20,000 per year in maintenance costs, alone.

And finally, I thought you might enjoy this "recycled" video from the Proofpoint archives... Here's our friend Richi Jennings telling me about his 2009 (but still quite interesting) research into "the carbon footprint of spam." Yes, pretty much all human activity has an energy cost and environmental impact. Do something good for the planet today, OK?

Moving to a Cloud Provider? Five Key Questions to Ask about Deployment Models, SLAs, Data Security, Viability

Writing in Datamation this week, Jeff Vance has an interesting article titled, "Moving to the Cloud? Five Questions You Must Ask Cloud Providers." As Jeff notes, the transition to cloud computing is "well past the tipping point" and, as more and more vendors provide cloud-based solutions, organizations looking to adopt those solutions need to be able to differentiate between the quality, security and viability of competing solutions.

To that end, Jeff describes five key questions to ask cloud vendors and several vendor representatives (our own Rami Habal among them) explain the importance of each item:

1. What models do you offer (private, public, hybrid) and what if I want to transition from one to another?
2. What is covered in your SLA?
3. How will you protect my data?
4. How will I know that you are properly protecting my data?
5. How can I trust that you'll be a viable company in the long run?

Here at Proofpoint, we try to help adopters answer these sorts of questions as easily as possible. One example is some new information and datasheet we put up this week on our cloud platform (dubbed Proofpoint CloudControl).

To learn more, visit our CloudControl information page or snag a PDF copy of our CloudControl datasheet.

 

Guaranty Bank Moves to Proofpoint Virtual Appliances for Email Security and Data Loss Prevention

Today's Proofpoint press release announces that Guaranty Bank, a leading financial services institution serving southwest Missouri, has switched from a competing solution to the Proofpoint Enterprise Protection and Proofpoint Enterprise Privacy email security and data loss prevention suites.

Guaranty Bank chose to deploy Proofpoint's virtual appliance version, because it offered a cost-effective, rapid way to protect both inbound and outbound email with "no hardware to add."

Like other enterprises that have recently made the switch to Proofpoint, Guaranty Bank had grown frustrated with its previous email security and DLP solution, finding that it didn't provide the level of flexibility and control the organization needed. Ease of administration and quality of support were also issues, with some simple support requests taking 24 hours to resolve.

Kenneth Johnston, Guaranty Bank's CIO and VP of information systems says, "We really needed a more user- and administrator-friendly solution that would allow us to have better granular control over our outbound messages. Proofpoint offered us a lot of flexibility to do that and also offered us a comprehensive feature set for both privacy and protection."

You can find the full press release here:

"Guaranty Bank Secures Inbound and Outbound Email with Virtual Proofpoint Solutions"

Virtualization for Email Security

At Proofpoint, we talk a lot about SaaS and cloud computing trends, but we're also still huge proponents of virtualization technology. Proofpoint has offered a virtual appliance version of its email security solution for a couple of years now, and it continues to be an increasingly popular deployment form factor — for a variety of reasons that range from cost savings to manageability.

I could type on and on about this, but this month's cover story in Messaging News, "Options for Virtualized Environments" gives a very good overview of how virtualization can benefit messaging security deployments. Yours truly is quoted extensively in this article, along with Proofpoint product manager Nithin Rao. There's also some discussion of the intersection between SaaS and virtualized environments.

And, uhhh, yeah, that's me on the cover.

Here's where you can download a complete PDF version of the February issue of Messaging News. Or jump to the article in an NXTbook version of the magazine.