Item: Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG)
Rating: 8
Author: Frank Haarmann

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG) is used as a dedicated mail gateway by a particular customer. This client uses CS SEG across the whole organization. This client's organization has locations in several international countries. The CS SEG is connected to the internal emailing infrastructure. On the CS SEG, there is an antivirus and antispam protection. Clearswift uses a very special kind of policy evaluation on the security component, which makes it outstanding.

Pros and Cons

CS SEG is fast in email processing
Managing the quarantine is easy
Display of the reasons why an email has been processed this is very detailed

Improvement is needed in the area of AV/Antispam update processing (internally)
Improvement is needed in the log file processing. Many log file entries are not understandable for an operator or administrator without special insider knowledge
Clearswift has recently changed the support provider. Now there are no german supporters anymore.

Return on Investment

Since this CS SEG environment is operated for a customer, I cannot answer this question

Alternatives Considered

Proofpoint Email Protection

The Clearswift Secure Email Gateway (CS SEG) has very low license costs. A two peer cluster is enough to run a complete emailing gateway environment. Compared to the Proofpoint PPS the CS SEG does not need a management appliance. The CS SEG peers can manage the quarantine by themselves. This is easy to use and quite fast.

Key Insights

Do you think Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG) again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiGate, Check Point 12000 Appliances

Likelihood to Recommend

The CS SEG appliances are running as virtual appliances by now. They do need not much power in the ESX environment. I recommend to use at least two peers running in a cluster. The cluster feature is working very well. The CS SEG can process a huge number of emails in a very short time frame.

Clearswift SEG is usable for companies with more than 1000 users and a lot of email traffic

Overall Satisfaction with Clearswift SECURE Email Gateway (SEG)