Barracuda Spam Firewall 900's high marks for ease of integration, ease of use, functionality and support -- and a perfect score for performance -- earned it the Gold Award in SearchExchange.com's Exchange Server Security Products of the Year 2006 category.

Based on open source solutions, Barracuda Networks Inc.'s Internet gateway product uses a combination of software and hardware to ward off a wide variety of messaging security threats. Its architecture protects against spam, viruses, spoofing, phishing, spyware and denial-of-service attacks. In addition, it offers sophisticated outbound email filtering techniques, such as rate controls, domain restrictions, user authentication, keyword and attachment blocking and dual-layer virus blocking.

Barracuda Spam Firewall 900 can generally be installed in five minutes in front of the Exchange server, and it will update itself hourly to block new forms of spam and viruses. It also includes these features:

• 300 GB storage capacity for quarantined messages

• Four CPUs for high-volume email processing

• Advanced capabilities, including redundant hot-swap power supplies and dual-gigabit Ethernet ports

• Multiple RAID disk arrays for greater performance

These features give Barracuda Spam Firewall 900 scalability and performance that can keep up with the demands of just about any company's email system.

Pricing: Barracuda Spam Firewall 900 costs $29,999 per appliance with no per-user fees, and $6,599 for an annual update service.

SearchExchange.com editors