Topic: ServiceLink - No Service

[Geoff Bennion]

I was wondering, as I guess a many people are, is there any way of just purchasing part of the service link package ?

i.e. Just Antivirus or PPTP ?

The reason I ask, is that we currently have a site licence for Trend Micro Interscan, and was wondering if we could just get the scripts which tie it into sme.

If this topic has already been covered, please accept my appologies.

Geoff

[Greg Zartman]

Geoff,

I purchased RAV from www.myezserver.com  and it works great.  They will also custom configure service agreements/packages to meet you needs.  

Regards,

Greg

[Graeme Fleming]

Damn fine idea, add my name to the list wanting this change.  With the exchange rate (plumeting) here in Australia Service link is prohibitively expensive especially since commercial packages for Linux are priced way, way below these numbers!

I would like a blade to integrate F-Secure.

Also what about the small business - the current rpicing is certainly not set to make it affordable to the majority of businesses.

Also I don't like the idea of being 'locked in' to a particular AV vendor; I have already changed once due to disatisfaction with one product; the blade to suit a particular AV vendor (purchased via a subscription if Mitel want a revenue stream) would seem to be the optimal solution.

If Mitel start making all these decisions for us we might as well use a Microsoft solution (not).

[Graeme Fleming]

Damn fine idea, add my name to the list wanting this change.  With the exchange rate (plumeting) here in Australia Service link is prohibitively expensive especially since commercial packages for Linux are priced way, way below these numbers!

I would like a blade to integrate F-Secure.

Also what about the small business - the current rpicing is certainly not set to make it affordable to the majority of businesses.

Also I don't like the idea of being 'locked in' to a particular AV vendor; I have already changed once due to disatisfaction with one product; the blade to suit a particular AV vendor (purchased via a subscription if Mitel want a revenue stream) would seem to be the optimal solution.

If Mitel start making all these decisions for us we might as well use a Microsoft solution (not).

[Dan Brown]

Mitel has already committed to making documentation on blades freely available.  Once it is, I'm sure we'll see a blade from Darrell, for example, to install RAV support.

You aren't "locked in" to anything--if you don't want the AV service that Mitel is offering, don't buy it; you're free to choose anything else that you can make work.  If you want the easiest solution, currently that's to pay Mitel about $1800/year for everything.

I'd point out here that, AFAIK, Microsoft don't even offer an antivirus solution, or any of the other features in ServiceLink.  What's your complaint?  That Mitel hasn't integrated every commercial AV package out there?  Please.  They've presumably reviewed the available solutions, and chosen the one that fits their goals best.  Again, if you want something else, nothing's stopping you.  There's at least one other option, which seems considerably cheaper, but not quite as easy to install, and that's RAV.

[Graeme Fleming]

>Mitel has already committed to making documentation on blades freely
available.  Once it is, I'm sure we'll see a blade from Darrell, for
example, to install RAV support.

.. glad to hear it.  Perhaps ones for a multitude of AV vendors may appear (we can only hope)

>You aren't "locked in" to anything--if you don't want the AV service that
Mitel is offering, don't buy it; you're free to choose anything else that
you can make work.  If you want the easiest solution, currently that's to
pay Mitel about $1800/year for everything.

.. my point is that the selection of Trend and its bundling into the Service link program means that if you subscribe then you are effectively locked in - my suggestion is that the AV component be configurable to suit many different AV vendors and as such promotes choice and allows better integration into current infrastructures (using CVP to an external CVP compliant server is just one example)

>I'd point out here that, AFAIK, Microsoft don't even offer an antivirus
solution, or any of the other features in ServiceLink.  What's your
complaint?  That Mitel hasn't integrated every commercial AV package out
there?  Please.  They've presumably reviewed the available solutions, and
chosen the one that fits their goals best.  Again, if you want something
else, nothing's stopping you.  There's at least one other option, which
seems considerably cheaper, but not quite as easy to install, and that's RAV.


.. point taken - my comment was somewhat tongue in cheek!

I am not complaining that Mitel have integrated an V solution, in fact I applaud them for it.  My comment was meant to indicate that fitting their solution to suit the majority of their user base would in fact make more sense.  Most of the installs I have done are for small businesses that have up to 20 users; the costing for Servicelink is prohibitive and other solutions are 'not supported'.  I have been looking for a strong, user manageble Linux server for a long time and adding 'non supported' components to the SME server is something I would prefer not to do.  The suggestion of multiple config pages to suit different vendors would provide AV support as a supported option within the core product that will work for most small business'.  This integrated module could be purchased as a subscription to pay for the development; at an affordable price of course

[Dan Brown]

>my suggestion is that the AV component be configurable
>to suit many different AV vendors

I'm sure that would be nice, but how feasible is it?  And are you suggesting that Mitel should support Trend, RAV, McAfee, Symantec, etc?  I can't speak for them, of course, but I can't see that this is at all reasonable.  

If all you're suggesting is that Mitel provide a standardized interface to AV packages, then we're worse off than we are now--right now, we have the choice of a complete AV solution that is supported by Mitel, or at least one solution that seems to be less expensive, but is not supported by them.  Under this idea, we'd have an interface that is supported by them, but none of the actual AV software would be (presumably you'd need to contact Trend/RAV/etc directly for that).  Seems to me like a huge step backward.

I guess I don't quite understand your apparent aversion to unsupported software.  To again refer back to Microsoft, any AV software on an MS server will be unsupported--by MS.  It will, presumably, be supported by the vendor of the AV software.  Mitel's gone one step better, and bundled an AV solution that they will completely support, for a price.  If you don't like that offering, you're in the same position you'd be in with an MS server--pick something else, and look to that vendor for support.

I agree that the price for the virus protection ($1295/year) seems stiff, even if it does also include backup MX service, when you consider that RAV costs $300 for 1-2 domains.  The question, I guess, is whether it's worth it to have a single point of contact for support.