OIT moves forward with new email anti-spam, anti-virus and archiving services

The OIT continues to move forward with plans for the implementation of new Google-hosted Postini products that will provide campus-wide anti-spam and anti-virus protection and central email retention for compliance with legal requirements, such as public records and e-discovery requests. The OIT anticipates the rollout of these services early this summer.

The new anti-spam and anti-virus products, which will help guard against cyber threats, will replace Sophos PureMessage for Unity/Webmail and M+Guardian for WolfWise.

The new retention service will save email for faculty and staff customers of both of these central email systems for a period of 10 years. The new policy requires that any faculty and staff member who conducts university business via email use one of the centrally hosted systems so that once the central email retention system is implemented, they will have their email retained. Regardless of the system used, faculty and staff have a legal responsibility to save copies of their email.

The OIT also recommends that faculty and staff who may have been using Unity/Webmail or WolfWise for their personal email to consider moving their personal email to another non-university email system so it is not retained in the business archive. There are a number of companies that offer free or low-cost email including Google, Yahoo and most Internet service providers.

For more information, visit the Postini project Web site. The OIT will also hold educational and information sessions about these new products for faculty and staff members in the near future.