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MESSAGING HONOURS GO TO MIRAPOINT IN UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD INSTALLATION
Division of Structural Biology Upgrades Messaging Network with Appliance-based Approach

Mirapoint, the pioneer of appliance-based secure messaging, has announced that it has been selected by the University of Oxford’s Division of Structural Biology (STRUBI) to upgrade its messaging network. The Message Director MD450 - the flagship product in Mirapoint's family of email security appliances - has been selected to meet the department’s performance, security and storage needs at the University’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. The installation will initially be utilised by a team of 70 researchers at the Oxford Protein Production facility.

The installation was supplied and managed by EZ Web Communication, a Mirapoint partner specialising in systems integration for the UK public sector.

The Division of Structural Biology (STRUBI) forms part of the multidisciplinary Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine within the University of Oxford. The research interests of the Division include the structural study of viral proteins and intercellular recognition.

Approximately 70 researchers within the division rely heavily on email to keep in touch and collaborate. Many spend time at research facilities in France, Germany, the United States and other countries, so the need for efficient email communications is critical even when using other labs’ hardware and a variety of operating systems. The technical nature of their work requires these researchers to frequently exchange very large file attachments up to 30 megabytes or more as well as needing long-term storage of large volumes of email.

“The Mirapoint appliance was brought to our attention by Oxford University Computing Services,” says Dr. Robert Esnouf, Head of Bioinformatics & IT within STRUBI. “Performance, reliability and storage were our watchwords, coupled with a system that required a minimum of maintenance. Good research is all about pushing equipment to the limit and I am happy to say that the Mirapoint solution has proven itself more than up to the challenge of such a tough environment.”

To support its email needs, STRUBI had been running a pair of UNIX servers with the freeware Exim message transfer agent (MTA) and Univ. of Washington IMAP daemons. This mix of hardware and software was no longer able to provide adequate response to each user, particularly for the large number and size of message attachments. The department required a self-contained email solution with improved remote connectivity and intrinsic webmail functionality, while retaining multi-gigabyte message storage capacity. With STRUBI IT staff focused on supporting research, it also needed a ‘plug & play’ solution that was always available with low management overhead.

Dr. Esnouf continued, “the key selling points for us were the effortless manageability, high availability, and reliable fully featured webmail on a single email appliance.”

“EZ Web is delighted to have installed Mirapoint equipment at such a prestigious institution as the University of Oxford,” says Deborah Mehigan, CEO, EZ Web Communications. “The department’s list of criteria proved a perfect match for Mirapoint’s appliance based-approach and we look forward to assisting in the phenomenal work carried out by Dr Esnouf and his team.”
“Mirapoint has a proven pedigree in the education sector and it is committed to helping its valued resellers like EZ Web further its reach in this important vertical market across Europe, said Jamie Cowper, Channel Manager, Mirapoint.

About Mirapoint
Mirapoint® is a leader in solutions for message networks used by service provider, enterprise, education and government institutions. Customers use Mirapoint solutions to build message networks that intelligently route, store, access and manage Internet messages, including email. Mirapoint is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., with offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The company has more than 600 customers worldwide. For more information on Mirapoint, visit its Web site at http://www.mirapoint.com/.

About EZ Web Communication Ltd
EZ Web Communication Ltd (EZ Web) is a UK Channel Partner for Mirapoint Inc and best of breed systems integrator specialising in e-communication technologies for the public sector. For more information on EZ Web, visit its Web site at www.ezwebltd.com or mail to info@ezwebltd.com.

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