Case Study - Australian Football League (AFL)
'It only took a few minutes to work out that adopting MailGuard to
undertake our content filtering needs was going to actually save us
money and time in people and bandwidth usage as well as
improving our security.'
-Tony Abate: IT Manager, Australian Football League
Challenge
AFL IT resource experiencing SPAM
mail doubling every two months.
There were substantial on-going
costs associated with managing and
updating anti-virus software while,
at the same time, increasingly
employing time of IT team members
in putting out virus and SPAM ‘fires’.
An additional concern existed with
the possibility of a negative impact
on public image of organisation.
Solution
MailGuard outsourced service delivering
proactive solutions to anti-virus, anti-SPAM,
content filtering and Privacy Act email
compliance requirements.
Benefits
- Simple to use, real-time and low cost off-site
answer to internal and external email activity
ensuring peace of mind to IT department
- All encompassing email management solution
into the future
- IT staff freed to direct their skills to higher
value activities.
The Story
The AFL is the premier sporting competition in
Australia commanding high levels of corporate
sponsorship and massive media. During each
premiership season, 16 clubs play 176 matches
and nine finals in different states around Australia.
The AFL Grand Final at the MCG attracts capacity
crowds of about 95,000 fans each year.
The AFL has a comprehensive, professional
administration arm led by Chief Executive Officer,
Wayne Jackson. The AFL's IT Manager, Tony Abate,
as in many workplaces today, has responsibility for
a wide variety of computer and communications
related issues with a limited number of resources
available to him.
"Being a high profile entity, we were receiving an
inordinate number of junk emails in addition to
dealing with virus concerns that were growing
daily," says Abate. "Since 2002, MailGuard has
effectively resolved both virus and SPAM issues for
the AFL. It only took a few minutes to work out
that adopting MailGuard to undertake our
content filtering needs was going to actually save
us money and time in people and bandwidth
usage as well as improving our security."
One of the biggest challenges in guarding against
debilitating viruses is simply keeping abreast of the
latest threats and updating all users' desktops.
There are substantial on-going costs associated
with managing and updating anti virus software.
MailGuard's outsourced solution checks every
incoming and outgoing email for an organisation
on a 24x7 basis and updates its own software
every 10 minutes.
Maintaining a wholesome family image.
"It is reassuring to know that viruses and
unwanted mail is intercepted at the ISP level
before it gets a chance to enter the AFL's
network," said Abate. "What is particularly
important to the AFL is the perception the market
has of us as an organisation. Some emails and
attachments have the potential to conflict with
our wholesome family image. Again, MailGuard
helps us quarantine these offensive or
questionable emails prior to either entering or
leaving our organisation."
The fact that there are no hardware or software
overheads related to the MailGuard service was
an enormous attraction to the AFL which looks
to saving on costs and streamlining
administration wherever possible. Abate and his
team are very happy with the level of support
from MailGuard staff, "even when it comes to
issues that aren't actually related directly to
MailGuard's offering," says Abate.
"It was very simple to set up over the internet
and has blocked tens of thousands of junk emails
and viruses from coming into our system. And all
I have to do is continue paying the monthly
invoice," said Abate. "I can access online reports
at any time and these provide useful
management statistics on network user numbers,
email usage, email sizes, internet access and virus
stops that have taken place and so on. This is the
sort of data that is of enormous assistance for
planning purposes."
An all-encompassing email management
solution into the future.
In addition, the AFL has adopted MailGuard's
automated solution to meet compliance
requirements based on the amendments to
the Privacy Act introduced in December 2001.
"We need to meet certain privacy requirements
for both internal and external email activity,"
said Abate. The AFL must ensure that all internal
users receive and agree to its email privacy policy
as well as, on request, providing its users with
details of what is logged of their users' email and
internet usage. MailGuard undertakes all of this
for the AFL.
"This is an ideal service, offering a simple to use,
real-time and low cost solution," concludes
Abate. "And this is the sort of thing IT managers
are looking for so as they can focus on the
important, business critical matters for their users."
Tony Abate: IT Manager,
Australian Football League. |
