Conservation International
Conservation International (CI) is a U.S.-based nonprofit corporation. CI applies innovations in science, economics, policy, and community participation to protect the Earth's richest regions of plant and animal diversity in the biodiversity hotspots, high-biodiversity wilderness areas, and key marine ecosystems. The organization works in more than 40 countries on four continents. For more information, visit www.conservation.org.
The Problem
More often than not, the success of CI's extraordinary conservation efforts hinge on the corporation's relationships with other organizations throughout the world. Partnerships continue to play a vital role in enabling many of CI's achievements. CI works with a diverse range of organizations, from museums and coffee mega-corporations to national repositories and international banks. Having reliable, efficient, and secure communication among all participants is key to CI's mission to conserve Earth's natural heritage for future generations.
In contrast, anything that inhibits communication is unacceptable.
Take spam, for example. Spam is widely acknowledged as a drain on productivity and resources as well as a security risk as malicious code is increasingly delivered via unwanted email. CI's current anti-spam service from CGNET was very effectivewith a 93 percent capture rate. But if it could be even better, CI clearly was interested.
"Email is one of our mission-critical applications," explains Alberto Lora, senior director for IT Operations at CI. "It is one of the central transports for all of the information that goes back and forth not only within CI but outside our organization as well. Consequently, as we began to hear about an increase in spamming, virus attacks, and more, we started discussing these issues with CGNET, our managed network services provider."
CGNET, in turn, was determined to find a way to deliver improved spam protection for their customer. A Symantec Software partner, CGNET tailors its services to the nonprofit, leveraging its expertise and experience in designing, implementing, maintaining, and evaluating communications network services that address global human needs wherever they are needed.
The Solution
CGNET came up with an innovative solution, using the filtering technology of Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam along with the router-based "squelching" technology of TurnTide AntiSpam Router, now a Symantec product since Symantec's acquisition of TurnTide in July 2004. By utilizing two different but complementary anti-spam technologies, CGNET fashioned a hosted spam-protection solution that generates exceptional results.
"The results have been spectacular," describes Tim Haight, Vice President of Marketing at CGNET. "Our records show that we're stopping an average of 99 percent of all the Internet-based spam headed towards our clients' servers. By way of comparison, in the period prior to cutting over to this new solution, we stopped about 93 percent of spam.
"That might not sound like much of a difference," he continues, "but when 70 percent of the messages on the Internet are spam, it means that the percentage of messages that are spam in a typical user's mailbox declines from about 13 percent to less than two percent. This is a major difference, which users notice."
Lora agrees. "We've seen a dramatic improvement in our protection against spam," he says. "This combination of tools has enabled us to see a significant decrease in email spam."
Here's how it works: As spam comes in from the Internet, it first hits the Symantec TurnTide AntiSpam Router where, according to CGNET tests, upwards of 44 percent of spam is deterred as the router identifies spam sources based on their behavior and limits the bandwidth and resources the spammers can usethereby stopping the spam from leaving the spammers' servers.
The remaining spam is then filtered by Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam, which uses more than 20 different filtering technologies to catch spam while allowing legitimate email on through.
This reduction in spam has made a noticeable impact on users as well as on IT resources at CI. "Dealing with spam was causing users to lose focus on their work," says Lora. "But now, users report virtually total satisfaction with our spam situation. This solution has also enabled us to better manage our IT assets since we no longer have to increase capacity on our servers."
But perhaps the greatest benefit of having tighter control over spam is that it frees CI to continue to do what it does best: work together with its many partners to maintain the Earth's natural heritage so that future generations can thrive spiritually, culturally, and economically.
"Because we work in different parts of the world, with different infrastructures, we rely on information and communications technologies for information sharing and exchange," Lora concludes. "These technologies can improve the work not only within CI but throughout the conservation community at large. And I believe that every organization within this global community would benefit from using our anti-spam solution."