Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) Reviews

Our primary use case is to support client environments. We need to check if everything is working fine if the email flows are fine, and if any certificates need to be renewed. Those are the system admin jobs that we do as system engineers.

The console has everything we need for management. We use all the available features. Every feature available in the management console is sufficient for us to manage.

All those features within the management, the exchange management, whether it's the shell management or the console management, are sufficient by themselves for the versions of the PUs. They keep changing the versions with every update, and they also add feature updates to the consoles. So that also keeps upgrading. So, the solution keeps improving. 

The best part is Microsoft EOP also includes publishing management, more inclusive with Exchange and all SharePoint and everything as well. So, they have partial modules for each Exchange and SharePoint. So that is a good thing as well. We can now manage things through partial. It could be done remotely as well. You don't have to sit on the server. It could also be on a jumpbox and just shell into it directly to an exchange server and manage that exchange server.  

I've been using it since I started working, so it's been a while. So, I have been working with this solution since 2016. 

The solution is fairly stable. The stability depends on when there's an outage or issues. From the Microsoft standard, they have had some issues within, maybe if there are some vulnerabilities in use. If there are some rogue actors or somebody has compromised the Exchange servers or something, they've affected the Exchange server services in the past. So, they do send out information. You can obtain that information from their site, which states, "This is what has happened with the Exchange servers, or all the Exchange servers may be down at the moment." So, those sorts of outages are already reported. And if Microsoft detects them, they report it across all the platforms and communities, providing information through chat as well. So, some visibility is always there.

Stability also depends on the way you manage it, basically. It comes down to how well it's managed, set up, and managed for individual organizations at their sites. So, that's why we have server admins to see how it's managed.

If the server hardware is sufficient enough, if they have sufficient memory, or if they're properly supporting Microsoft EOP. The system requirements need to be fine-tuned. All the VMs hosted need enough memory, and there should be sufficient storage for the databases and such.

So, from Microsoft's point of view, the stability of Exchange as a product depends on the servers running based on our recommendations and specifications. So, it all hinges on the licensing the users have purchased from Microsoft. Unless there's an outage or a vicious attack, or some malicious attack on the service itself, which they report immediately, there aren't any significant issues.

So, I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Almost everyone in the company uses it, probably thousands of end users. We didn't encounter any problems with scalability. In fact, Microsoft provides recommendations on how to migrate to the cloud and such. So, everything is seamless. 

Even when configuring reserves, it automatically alerts you with exceptions and errors. Especially during mailbox migrations to the cloud, like stage migrations or batch migrations, it provides suggestions. For example, it might notify you that you're processing too many mailboxes at once based on their sizes and recommend reducing the quantity. These prompts are readily available. 

We opted for this solution because most of the enterprises we have to support the basic applications we support. We are the 365 admins as well as Azure admins, and also in the on-prem environment. So we keep migrating mailboxes and chatboxes over, and sometimes, we have to do complete exchange migrations to the cloud. SharePoint migrations, we handle, as well as a server management team.

The initial setup is just a standard process. You just need to follow the Microsoft documentation and send whichever you're very comfortable with your experience. For everything, there are articles and documentation with Microsoft. You just need to follow them, and it's just that you need to consider what your environment is and how to expand information about your current infrastructure. Based on that, you have to consider things while upgrading it or moving it across the cloud.

Some of them are completely cloud. Some of them are hybrid environments. They have a few on-premises for legacy printers and legacy applications. So, for SMTP communication and other stuff. But mostly, most of the users' mailboxes are on the cloud.

The time taken for deployment depends on the size of the organization, how many mailboxes they have, and the main databases. There's no one standard procedure. It could range from a few hours for a small organization to weeks for a large organization.

The licensing can be on the expensive side, especially in the cloud space. They may not be the absolute most expensive option, but they are indeed on the higher end. However, that comes with a certain level of quality. It's like comparing Apple products to other phones in the market. For example, Apple iPhones and tablets are priced higher for a reason. They are known for their security and quality, which is why they can command a premium price.

And people are willing to pay that premium because they trust the brand.

I would rate it nine out of ten because of its widespread usage and trust in the market at the enterprise level. Microsoft products, especially Exchange, are widely used and trusted. 

They have a significant presence, capturing a major share of the enterprise market. All their applications are widely used, whether it's for emails, databases, SQL, backups with OneDrive, cloud storage, or SharePoint, and more. They offer a suite of products for office tools. So, these are the commonly used tools in any organization, be it medium-sized, small, or even a small retailer. Given this, I would rate them a nine or ten because of their extensive market share, both globally and locally.

Microsoft's dependability and trust are a result of its long-standing presence in the industry. They've been in business for a significant amount of time.

My company uses Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for additional security, spam filtering, and DNS spoofing.

The most valuable features of the solution are the security and compliance it offers to users.

The solution lacks to elaborate on its spam policies. For improvement, spam policies need to be more elaborate.

I have been using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for seven years. I use the solution's latest version. I am a customer of the solution.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven and a half out of ten.

The product's availability is somewhat limited. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

I contacted the solution's technical support in the past, and they quickly responded. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection was easy.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

The pricing for the solution depends on what you are trying to achieve with the use of the product, but I know that it is not a cheaply priced product. Yearly payments have to be made towards the licensing fees of the solution.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is a good product.

I rate the overall product a seven out of ten.

It is an easy solution. It is useful for local users and our company because we use Microsoft 365. It is also free with Microsoft 365.

The security features could be better and more secure in the next release.

We have been using this solution for two years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. We have more than 200 users using this solution using Microsoft accounts and emails.

The deployment was easy. We have a hybrid solution. We have Exchange, we have Office 365, and we can create Office 365 users. So if we want to create with Exchange, we can also do that. And all our incoming emails go through Office 365 Online Protection.

We've used technical support a few times, and they've helped us.

The initial setup was straightforward. It has already established standards that are configured.

The solution has annual licensing.

I rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for scanning and protecting email attachments and URLs. Primarily we use Mimecast for URL protection, but it's good to have a second step, particularly Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, just in case something slips through.

What I like most about Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is its integration with Windows, so we have one central view for all alerts and incidents.

I'm pretty happy with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, so off the top of my head, I can't think of any reason for me to want to change something in the solution.

Having orchestration features added to Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, particularly automation and remediation, would be quite useful.

I've been using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for five or six years.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is quite stable.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is a scalable solution.

I haven't contacted technical support for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection.

Before Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, we used Mimecast. We still use Mimecast, but for an antimalware solution, we've always used what's available on Windows.

I didn't configure the solution, so I can't tell if the setup was straightforward or complex. Our Exchange administrators were the ones who set up Microsoft Exchange Online Protection.

We implemented the solution in-house.

Our license for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is covered by our enterprise agreement.

There are three thousand users of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection in our company. There is no plan to increase the number of users, at least not in the near future.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is quite a difficult product. I would recommend it because it's a good product. My advice to others looking into using it is to make sure their rules are configured correctly, and they have turned on all the necessary features.

I'm rating Microsoft Exchange Online Protection eight out of ten.

Microsoft EOP's most valuable feature is a shared mailbox. 

The solution needs to improve its backup. 

I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten. 

Microsoft EOP is scalable. 

The tool's deployment is straightforward. You need to get a license to use the product. 

I rate Microsoft EOP a ten out of ten. 

Not a lot of our company's clients actually get Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) implemented in their IT environments.

My company's clients use Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) for email protection.

The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is a one-stop shop going through Microsoft. You don't have to worry about additional out-of-the-box features since the solution already offers a very good amount of basic protection or security for your emails. Most of our clients are small-sized businesses, so it suits them fine.

Our company faces difficulty with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) because it's too big, clunky, and difficult for a small client to implement quickly and easily. Microsoft's competitors work a lot better since their products come out of the box directly, and one needs to turn them on to make them work. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) requires a lot of configuration, support, and management. The aforementioned areas can be considered for improvement.

I have been using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) for five years. I work at an IT support company that resells, implements, and offers support for Microsoft products.

My company hasn't faced any stability issues with the solution.

My company hasn't had the need to use the solution's scalability, but I believe that it is a scalable product.

My company works with small to medium-sized businesses, where even among the medium-sized ones, we prefer the smaller ones.

In general, my company is happy with Microsoft support, and we haven't needed support specifically for Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP).

I rate the technical support an eight to nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of the solution does not consist much of installing it, but meeting the needs of our company's clients. The setup phase requires quite a bit of planning.

There is no standard amount of time taken when it comes to the deployment of the solution. After our company's clients are prepared to make payments toward the solution, it takes around four hours to deploy the solution.

The solution falls on the higher or more expensive side of the spectrum.

The maintenance of the solution is neither too easy nor too difficult. The maintenance is not so easy because what tends to happen is things get set up, and those decisions don't get revisited regularly. There needs to be some process where the settings, decisions, and configurations get reviewed to determine whether they still meet the company's clients' needs regularly.

The solution can be more beneficial for medium and large-sized businesses compared to the smaller ones.

I rate the overall solution a six out of ten.

We use it for email protection. 

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is very good when it comes to anti-phishing and anti-malware. And the fact that it has an impersonation feature for the domain as well as users.

The reporting needs a little bit of improvement. When you compare it to Mimecast features and data porting tools, it's less superior compared to EOP.

Another area of improvement could be pricing. So Exchange Online Protection has a higher price compared to its competitors.

I've been working with it for over three years now.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. The scalability is pretty good; it does what it is supposed to do. I haven't encountered many issues because Microsoft regularly updates its product.

We're just over 650 users in our company using this solution.

The customer service and support have been really helpful. Whenever we raise a support ticket with them, they respond in a timely manner, and almost 99.9% of the time, issues are resolved.

Positive

I have used MessageLabs in the past, and I would say that EOP is better than MessageLabs in terms of the interface and ease of use. 

The initial setup is easy. Moreover, it is easy to maintain. The deployment model is cloud-based, but we are in a hybrid environment. So it does protect our on-premises environment as well.

The initial deployment was done by our IT team. In our IT department, I would say roughly 12 people are required for maintenance.

It's a high price. When comparing it to Microsoft Defender and Mimecast, it is more expensive. 

I would definitely require using this solution. Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

The reason for the use of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is that the solution is native to Microsoft Exchange.

It is easy to configure, easy to use, easy to add exclusions, easy to track, and easy to add anything else if you want.

We have come across cases pointing out that if one is not registered with DKIM on the solution, certain features don't work. Also, tools don't work if you do not register your SPF. So, the aforementioned areas should be considered for improvement. That's why one needs to configure the tenant perfectly. After that, the features and security tools can be used nicely. Also, If one could have any other email gateway that is not working and acts as a secondary gateway on your tenant, then it would be a helpful update. As I see right now, there is no such feature update on Microsoft 365's roadmap. So, such changes can lower the cost of licenses. The solution can be made cheaper.

I have experience with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for fourteen months. My customers have been using the solution for three years. A lot of customers changed their antiviruses to Microsoft Defender. We are consultants and not resellers. We give samples of Microsoft products, and our customers decide what is what. Owing to budget, our customers opted for Microsoft Defender. Also, there is no version of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection.

The product could be more stable. Microsoft products could be more stable because sometimes, even though they are updating some things, we cannot find those updates. Sometimes, they change their UI, and since we are not made aware of it fully, we keep searching for the new UI feature. Sometimes they also depreciate some of the features. At times, there are new viruses being introduced, and they need time to adjust the viruses.

It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten. My clients range from small to very large enterprise-sized businesses. One of our clients has five million users, while some of our clients have a hundred and fifty users. So it varies extensively.

Microsoft support is the worst. If you are in a hurry, they don't address your issues. As a consultant, my problems are level two and above, not level one. We are creating cases and tickets while level-one issues are coming to us, which is a time-consuming thing. We do not have any time to spend on such issues. It's their job to manage us, but we can solve the level one problem. Maybe we can solve the level two problem as well, but we have to start from zero again and again. Also, sometimes they go on holiday for one month maybe, and we are our cases. So, we keep waiting. It takes too much time to get to a support partner. I rate the technical support a three out of ten.

Negative

The solution's initial setup process was easy. Even a finance employee can do the setup.

Those with previous experience can deploy it in one hour. If you need to check the documents and check the videos, then it may take two or three days to deploy the solution. Only one engineer is required for deployment.

Maintenance is required because sometimes it doesn't work. If you have not registered to DKIM or SPF, you cannot use the solution on the cloud. If you delete it somehow, you cannot use the solution. Hence, you need to check the solution regularly. So, it is not Microsoft's problem. It's your problem. So, it's a tenant-owner problem, so you need to check them.

I am the only person involved in maintaining the solution.

My clients have deployed the solution on public and hybrid clouds.

The solution is very expensive right now.

On some occasions, it's cheap compared to the Microsoft Defender. If I check online, its prices can be made a little bit lower. On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is very expensive, I rate the pricing a six. For licensing, we can make monthly or yearly payments. Right now, we pay 5 USD per month to secure a person's license.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is easily accessible. Also, it's easy to use and configure. The solution offers a user-friendly UI, and tracking incidents becomes effortless. It provides the convenience of easily monitoring specific aspects and utilizing KQL to track any additional requirements. Considering these advantages, I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.