Item: Barracuda Email Security Gateway
Rating: 10
Author: Derek Schroeder

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Barracuda Email Security Services are in use by my company with the online Essentials flavor. It has been implemented by a number of my clients with the Essentials or the on-premises options. Both options include inbound and outbound spam filtering as well as options for content filtering and outbound encryption services. The entire organization's email goes through this system and several departments utilize the outbound encryption for secure transmission.

Pros and Cons

Inbound filtering, including attachment and text parsing customization. This allows further customization to quarantine or block based on this criteria as well as customized "spam digest" reports that can be sent once or multiple times a day at custom intervals.
Outbound encryption feature includes option to send email securely. The on-premises appliance also has an Outlook add-in that allows a button click to enable encryption for the specific email, while Essentials offers a "tag line" in the subject or body to enable encryption.
AntiVirus and Advanced Threat Detection prevent numerous malicious emails from ever entering the email system.

The online Essentials flavor does not have the Outlook add-in button to enable outbound email encryption. This feature is very easy to use for end users versus the "tag line" that must be inserted into the subject or body of the email. This is a 2018 feature request that is on their roadmap.

Return on Investment

Positive: The service provides tremendous value with all features built-in.
Positive: Superior scanning technology including AntiVirus and Advanced Threat Protection.
Negative: Minimum number of users for licensing is 10. Small companies will need to pay a bit extra until they reach 10 users.