ONTARIO, Canada/EWORLDWIRE/Jan. 16, 2007 --- Spam has mutated, getting nastier and more prolific over the years, but CanIt-PRO has kept pace and blocked it out for one southern ISP.Almost three years ago, Mississippi-based ISP Dixie-Net decided to implement Roaring Penguin's CanIt-PRO version 2.0 to handle its growing email spam problems. "Our users had been clamoring for a solution to the spam problem for months. We evaluated all the options, including open-source products, paid services, and other software solutions," said Chris Marsalis, then VP of operations.
"Back then we tried other solutions including real-time blacklists, but as spammers got smarter we had too much incoming spam to handle effectively. The Roaring Penguin product was the only one that offered the type of granularity we needed to satisfy our customers."
Marsalis, currently director of operations at Dixie-Net, has overseen the installation and upgrade of several versions of CanIt-PRO, now on version 3.3.7. With the growth and success of Dixie-Net and the constant evolution of spammers has come increased reliance on the spam filtering tool's clustering capabilities. Explains Marsalis, "The server farm has grown in conjunction with our need for multiple filters distributing network bandwidth and processing power."
From the beginning things went well, with CanIt-PRO automatically blocking the majority of spam. Over three years, spam volume has increased. Initially CanIt-PRO ran on one server, but the raw size of the database quickly required more hardware processing power. Dixie-Net's anti-spam cluster has expanded from that initial server to six servers, but the increased size of the cluster has not increased workload. In fact, CanIt-PRO has reduced workloads. CanIt-PRO's automatic updates reduced system administration time. Marsalis says CanIt-PRO also took system maintenance time down from about 15 hours/week to "just a few hours every couple of weeks."
Change is constant in an ISP data centre; increased volumes also meant updates to software. Over Roaring Penguin's history there has been a constant arms race with the spammers; when spammers invent a new technique, Roaring Penguin must immediately provide countermeasures. "Moving through several versions of the filter has usually been a painless process," says Marsalis.
Dixie-Net worked hard to find default global spam settings suitable for the majority of their customers, but still allow flexibility at individual user level. "Most of our clients are going to stay with those default settings," recalls Marsalis. "Users can interface directly with the filter and specify their own settings." Also, for a minimal fee, advanced users can have access to the Dixie-Net Expert Interface which allows more detailed email filtering settings.
As well as utilizing CanIt-PRO for email spam filtering, Dixie-Net also uses the highly-regarded ClamAV anti-virus scanner (available in the CanIt-PRO system) to help filter out harmful viruses for their employees and 10,000 residential and business customers. ClamAV's frequent automatic updates often lead the anti-virus industry in timeliness.
A satisfied Chris Marsalis says, "Through all the installs, upgrades and growth, I've never been tempted to switch. CanIt-PRO is still the best out there."
Learn more at 'http://www.roaringpenguin.com'.
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