Barracuda ESG (discontinued) vs. Microsoft Exchange

Good combination when using their other products like an incident response. When using automated workflows, this makes creating sender policies a breeze. Unfortunately, this can also be done too well as it may filter out valid emails and to resend or place them back into users' mailbox isn't an easy thing to do even if you attempt to resend through the Email Security Gateway.

For our clients, the switch to an entirely independent (parallel processing) Microsoft Exchange Server was a lifesaver because previous software versions frequently crashed. The clever viva add-on informs me of any things that are still uncompleted in my large email to-do lists. Migrating to Office 365 has never been easier because to the meticulous preparation that has gone into it. Web applications will load more quickly.

Incentivized

• Stops unwanted emails coming through to your inbox, it does this by holding them in a 'quarantine' folder for you to then check and allow or deny.
• Protects against phishing and ransomware attacks.
• Stops employees clicking on dangerous links in emails by putting them in a secure place.

Incentivized

• An in-built calendar to manage your daily work schedule. Let's you create events, invite a particular group of people, accept invitations, and remind you of your upcoming meetings and tasks.
• I also like the daily emails we get from Exchange that ask you to set aside time for yourself or your other hobbies to take a short break from monotonous work.
• The email categorization feature is pretty good, especially the sort/search filtering option to navigate through your emails, which can also go through your deleted emails.
• It has an excellent spam-filtering feature which greatly reduces the chance of malware and spam. I have hardly seen spam emails get through their filter. On the other hand, it also recognizes emails from external organizations that may be spam, but are important work emails.

Incentivized

• The appliance has a feature to block all office macros. This is a great feature but only has an on/off setting. I would like to see the additional of allowing exclusions for users who need to receive office macros.
• The feature for email encryption is great and allows us to not require an additional product or service for this. Unfortunately this is similar to the office macro feature and does not allow exclusions. The setting automatically detects information like credit cards, social security numbers, and other sensitive information. I have a user who works with Japanese companies. Japanese phone numbers apparently trigger the SSN filter. I wish I could put an exclusion in for this recipient or sender.
• I wish the appliance had an auto firmware update option. Where non major releases would be automatically installed.

Incentivized

• The two main factors for the better reliability & Uptime of internally hosted Exchange Server depends on Exchange Server configuration and the level of investment the organization is willing to provide for hosting the Exchange Server On-Premise Environment. As the data is stored in the organization’s hardware, any disaster may lead to the loss of email and servers.
• Losing data might affect business continuity and rebuilding it can be costly.
• Security remains a major concern.
• Security of data loss is main concern. To ensure that, organization needs to configure networks, systems and Exchange platform against possible threats.
• Hardware and license costs are high.

Incentivized

Email and calendars in a business setting are requirements. And Microsoft continues to be the standard of business applications. Microsoft 365 makes Microsoft Exchange easy to use. Everything is in the cloud. Let Microsoft take care of the hardware, the software, and the security. You just enable your business users with the functionality they need.

Incentivized

Setting up the Barracuda for use with Microsoft 365 provides issues that Barracuda seems to have no fix for. I mentioned these issues to their support, because I am constantly reminded of them by their system, and I was told that those errors are normal for our setup and to ignore them which is frustrating to me.

Incentivized

Microsoft Exchange has come a long way over the years and has nowhere near the technical overhead required for support as it did back in 2003/2007 and prior. The integrations with Teams, Defender, Sharepoint, Copilot and many other products make it a solid and well-rounded tool used for many day-to-day tasks.

Incentivized

Availability is robust and flawless. This is a non-issue, its always up & running and fail-over protection is available for restarts or upgrades.

Incentivized

Exchange is setup with multiple servers behind load balancers to provide high availability.

Incentivized

The WebUI is the only piece I find lacking on the Barracuda ESK. Its is not the fastest and is fairly utilitarian in its approach. The Outlook plug-in, while not in wide use here, causes zero slowdown in Outlook or the Barracuda ESG.

Incentivized

I would say it's the best email product I've experienced.

Incentivized

Barracuda Email Security Gateway support is great at responding and escalating cases when needed. Timeliness is key when dealing with email attacks, spoofing or malware. Barracuda also has great resources for end-user training as our end users are our first line of defense in combatting attacks on our company. Training end-users pays off in time spent dealing with any email attacks

Incentivized

We have a good enterprise agreement with Microsoft which affords us quick phone support. I have found the support staff knowledgeable and prompt with a solution when required. At times it may be difficult to schedule a call back, this is mainly due to our need for calls early in the morning which happens to be during a shift change at Microsoft support.

Incentivized

Implementation/conversion can be quite complex and, unless you have certified Exchange administrators in-house, you should strongly consider a 3rd party consultant for this implementation.

Incentivized

Barracuda integrates well with Office 365 and mail flow is great. It was the first solution we found that was part of a greater suite to fit all the requirements we had. With the Email Security gateway being in the cloud, it required no extra hardware but also nothing new installed on an endpoint as some solutions require.

Incentivized

Microsoft Exchange Product The best cloud-based enterprise-grade archiving platform with a host of features that enable files to be securely archived and retrieved with advanced search options. This tool is very easy to use and has a User-friendly interface. It is a highly reliable platform that allows all employees to automatically store their data without any limitations. It offers a cost-effective solution with customized policy management. We are happy that the customer support team is always fast and concerned, and the product's uninterrupted service experience. It is very good that it stores data in real-time without losing it, even in the event of a disaster. The cost-effective solution and integration with other tools are seamless.

Incentivized

The only time Exchange has failed us is when we did something to cause the failure.

Incentivized

• The cost of ESS for our organization is tiny compared to the amount of money we would lose if even one virus-laden PDF slipped through
• Ignoring genuine malware/phishing, the cost of ESS for our organization is tiny compared to the amount of money we save by blocking regular spam (so employees don't ever see it)
• From an administrator's perspective, putting the reins in the hands of our employees so they can look at their own quarantine (and leave IT out of it) has saved us 💵DOLLA 💸DOLLA💵BILLS 💸Y'ALL💵

Incentivized

• After testing I found Exchange very good at removing/quarantining malware.
• The Global Address List is great for finding the correct person within the organization to deal with.
• The Clutter feature is terrible. Sometimes putting important emails into that folder for no discernible reason.

Incentivized