Google's "Powered by Postini" Message Services Overview
Google's "Powered by Postini" services are add-on services to Google Apps for Education (GAFE) that provide enhanced email anti-virus/anti-spam filtering through Google Message Security (GMS), and email archiving services through Google Message Discovery (GMD). ITS has purchased both solutions. In July, 2009, UNCG ITS switched the University's email anti-virus/anti-spam filtering for faculty and staff accounts from the UNCG-hosted Sophos PureMessage solution to Google Message Security. Archiving through Google Message Discovery is not yet active, with the exception of a few ITS accounts involved in the ITS Google email pilot, however once users are switched from Lotus to iSpartan for their mail delivery, GMD services will be activated for their account.
Switching to Google Message Security for anti-virus/anti-spam filtering has allowed the University to save money on hardware and staff time compared to the Sophos solution. ITS has received some positive feedback from clients about the user interface. ITS has chosen to set UNCG's default aggressiveness for spam filtering as "strict" rather than the typical GMS default of "normal." We have seen GMS identify some messages as "false positives" for spam, but clients concerned about this may chose to adjust the filtering setting for their own accounts. Messages falsely tagged as spam are also easily retrieved from daily spam digests that are sent to clients.
Google Message Discovery is turned on for individual clients at the time that their mail delivery is switched from Lotus to Google. All incoming email is routed through GMD prior to delivery to the client's inbox, and outgoing email passes through GMD prior to being routed to the internet. Any (non-spam) email is placed in an archive to which the client has only read access. The current plan, determined in conjunction with University Counsel and ITS Records Management personnel, is to retain all email in the GMD archive for a minimum of 5 years. GMD includes a Message Discovery Console that may be used by University Counsel to search for email messages and attached documents in the event of a public records request or legal action. Use of Message Discovery does not impact the user's Google mailbox - individuals may delete messages from their Google mailbox. If a user inadvertently deletes a message from the Google mailbox, that individual may use the GMD "recover" function to have the message restored to their mailbox.Users access both GMS & GMD services by visiting the Spam Control web page (spamcontrol.uncg.edu) and logging in with their UNCG username and password.