Mail Filtering Service
Last Updated: January 31, 2011 @ 10:44 am
Next Review Date: 01/01/2013
Service Manager: Donald L Nash
Governance Group: None
Document Status: Published
Key Metrics
- Availability: 99.9%
- Delivery delay: Less than 1 hour
Overview
This document defines the service level agreement for the Mail Filtering service.
Service description
The Mail Filtering Service provides reliable mail delivery, spam filtering and virus protection for mail servers across campus. This service consists of a number of IronPort email security appliances, IronPort Anti-Spam software, Sophos Anti-Virus software and an email filtering programming language that can be used for customized defenses against threats not caught by vendor supplied software.
Intended users
Mail Filtering can be used by administrators of e-mail servers on campus.
Supported computing environment
This service can support any e-mail servers that adhere to the SMTP e-mail standards.
Technical support
Both Tier 1 and Tier 2 technical support is available during normal business hours. Routine requests are typically addressed within one business day.
Tier 1
End users should start with Tier 1 technical support. Any user can call the ITS Help Desk at 512-475-9400. Users with a departmental Technical Support Contact (TSC) should contact that individual.
Tier 2
Departmental support staff and the ITS Help Desk may escalate issues to Tier 2.
Tier 3 Support
The ITS-Systems UNIX group is the next tier of support for this service. The Help Desk can escalate issues to the UNIX group. ITS UNIX group has established mailing lists on utlists.utexas.edu and subscribed departmental e-mail administrators. This e-mail list will be used by the UNIX staff to communicate to e-mail administrators. There is a distinct mailing list for each of the three aspects of this service.
Special Support
ITS has an ongoing support contract with IronPort in case they need to escalate problems to the vendor.
Maintenance
ITS will notify customers about both scheduled and unscheduled maintenance using the ITS Services Status page of service availability and service delivery issues. Services may not be available during the maintenance periods.
Scheduled maintenance
Due to the architecture of this service, most maintenance tasks can be done on servers on a rolling basis and thus will not require any down time for the service as a whole.
Unscheduled maintenance
Unscheduled maintenance tasks that require service downtime will be announced as soon as possible on the ITS Services Status page.
Change notification
ITS will notify customers using the ITS Services Status page of service availability and service delivery issues for the Mail Filtering service.
User responsibilities
Subscribers (users) of the service and identified owners/administrators agree to be aware of and adhere to the university's Acceptable Use Policy.
Email administrators who request this service agree to:
- Provide accurate information about their e-mail system, including the mail domains to be protected, the host names of the mail servers that serve these domains, and whether spam should be deleted or merely tagged with an X-header. Any changes to this information will need to be communicated to ITS in a timely manner.
- It is expected that the information provided by ITS to the mailing lists will be noted and if necessary acted upon. E-mail administrators will need to adhere to best practices for postmasters. Departmental administrators should take steps to insure attackers are prohibited from bypassing our IronPorts to connect to their servers directly.
- In cases where ITS staff detect problems such as e-mail loops they will contact the e-mail administrator(s) to request remediation. In extreme cases where this problem affects the whole service ITS might take action to remedy the situation first before contacting the customer.
- In cases where ITS staff detect problems with outbound and mail relay which might affect the whole service they might take direct action and then inform e-mail administrators.
Departmental IT support staff agrees to:
- Provide ITS the name and contact information of e-mail administrators who will then be subscribed to the appropriate mailing list(s) established for the service(s) they have signed up for. Departmental IT staff will inform ITS if there are any changes to their staff information.
Cost of Service
Cost information for this service can be found on the Mail Filtering web site.
