ProofPoint unveils virtual version of Messaging Security Gateway 27 September, 2006 By Andrew Horan

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It offers the same security features found in the company's physical appliances in an easy to use virtual appliance for VMware.

While the company is best know for security solutions for larger companies, director of market development Keith Crosley said that SMBs can also use the product.

"A lot of the guys we work with have established messaging security practices and also virtualization practices and so they've had a lot of customers move critical applications to a virtual environment and so this gives them yet another really important application that they can no deploy in there customer's virtual infrastructure," Crosley said.

The introduction of this appliance brings the benefits of server virtualization to the enterprise messaging security market. The virtual appliance offers all the benefits of its physical counterpart (zero-overhead administration, ease-of-management, high performance and extensive security features) as well as the many benefits of virtualization, including low cost, easy deployment and provisioning, simplified change management and easy backup and disaster recovery.

Best of all, existing customers of Proofpoint software, such as the Proofpoint Protection Server and hardware appliances, including the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway can deploy MSGVE in lab or test environments free of charge. New virtual test environments can be quickly brought up or taken down on an as-needed basis.

The application also provides the same protection against spam, viruses and other message-borne threats as its physical counterpoints.

MSGVE is ideally suited to businesses that have either adopted or are moving to the VMware environment.

Virtualization will be a boon to the channel according to Crosley. While hardware appliances are going to be main product that is deployed for the foreseeable future, Crosley said that there's going to be a move towards virtual appliances because they cut down on shipping times and it also means that vendors will have to carry less inventory with them.

"They could serve a lot more people," he said. "We think that one of the things that's going to happen is it's really going to broaden the reach into more remote areas (where) it becomes a lot harder to reliably ship hardware."

Crosley felt the introduction of the appliance will mean one of two things for the channel. First, he sees a big move towards providing specialized versions of popular apps specifically virtual environments, namely VMware, in the future. He said that application virtualization is going to be a huge market for the channel.

This is going to lead to a lot less friction for vendors in terms of the sales and evaluation process. Crosley said this is going to allow them to do a lot more business.

It will be available as an annual subscription and can be set up so it is suited to an enterprises' needs. The basic content security features for 250 users, all support and maintenance included, will cost around $10,000.

"Obviously one of the benefits of virtualization is that at any time you could at any time deploy virtual servers," Crosley said. "So, if your pricing is tied to the CPU or to the hardware box it becomes very hard to translate that into a sensible model for the virtual world."

The full and trial versions of the appliance will be available in the fourth quarter of 2006. A free beta is available for download at www.proofpoint.com/beta