Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) Reviews

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.

The solution is for general protection, specifically for email scanning to protect against threats.

The value of the solution is the fact that it's completely already integrated into the Office 365 environment so you don't have to go do different things to manage and be able to control, configure, and integrate security as part of the overall Mailpack. 

For some customers, they don't feel comfortable having all their eggs in the Microsoft basket. Some prefer to have another scanner to do the scanning for protection.

The scanning is quite effective.

It's integrated right into Office 365.

The solution is stable.

It is scalable.

The biggest issue that I experience is that Microsoft keeps moving things around, and it's very inconsistent as to where you find the information when you're trying to work on different pieces. The fact that they keep changing it, keep changing the portals and moving things around, gets to be very frustrating when you're trying to get something configured for customers.

Technical support needs improvement.

The solution is a bit pricey. 

I've used the solution for quite a while at this point. 

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no problem with scalability.

We deal with support all of the time. Technical support could be better.

Negative

The implementation is somewhere in the middle of easy and difficult. You do need to know what you're doing, and you're not always sure of both the level of the spam policies and the protection you're putting on, for example, what it's actually gonna do to mail. It takes experience. Somebody new is not generally going to figure it out quickly.

The level of maintenance depends on the size of the organization. That said, it doesn't take a lot of care and feeding once it's set up properly.

The pricing is moderate. I'd rate them five or six out of ten. They are a bit expensive, considering I'm already paying for staff in the portal. 

I spend 99% of my time working with Microsoft products. We do resell Microsoft. We're a small business partner. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. 

It's a spam filter and an antivirus solution. It protects our clients from spammers.

It has a really nice web-based administration console. Thanks to this, our clients are not tied to a particular server or workstation. They can just hit a URL anywhere in the enterprise and view the console.

The included patch management system is really good. It keeps itself up to date which is critical when you're dealing with anti-virus and spam filtering. Overall, I think it's really a great product.

It kind of has a heavy footprint — in terms of an implementation footprint. I think the implementation could be more streamlined. The implementation could be more flexible in terms of allowing users to pick and choose where they want to deploy.

Personally, I like to be able to pick and choose what I'm implementing and where I am implementing it in the environment instead of having to install the whole stack.

In the next release, I would like to see them add some features beyond just spam and anti-virus. Maybe some bulk email tools — in terms of being able to send them from within the environment. Send group emails, send information to the administration team; I'd like to see them add some MailChimp kind of functionality or mailing lists. 

Instead of just providing spam and anti-virus filtering, I'd like to see them add more feature functionality. The one thing that I don't like is that it's very much a point product. It just does what it does, very specialized. I think this industry as a whole is going away from point products and heading towards suites — integrated suites that do a number of different things. I think that they would be wise to fold this into a broader overall suite of products.

I have been using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for roughly 15-16 years. 

This solution is exceptionally stable. It scales excellently for what it's used for.

The technical support is outstanding.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

ROI-wise, this solution has been great.

If you're interested in using this solution, make sure you understand the technical requirements and deploy it somewhere where it will have access both inside and outside that it needs. Inside, it needs to see the mail stores, and outside it needs to be able to download the packages that it needs to provide the spam and anti-virus filtering with protection.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of ten. 

I'm using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection to reduce cost because I won't need another solution to check the edge malware and spam.

The most valuable feature is the ease of administration. Other solutions require complex administration, but Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is easier.

The security compliance features need to be improved. Sometimes, a client's mailbox becomes full because of retained information and not because of mail.

I would like to see improvement in block rules as well.

I've been using this solution for nine years.

It is a stable solution, and I would give stability a ten out of ten.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection's scalability is good, and I rate it at ten out of ten.

I would rate Microsoft's technical support at ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection was easy.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is a good solution at an affordable price. It is a good investment.

I would recommend Microsoft Exchange Online Protection and rate it at ten out of ten.

I work in a financial institution and we use Microsoft Exchange Online Protection to protect our CEO's emails and all users' emails from phishing and other threats.

The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is the accidental release of information protection capabilities. Additionally, the solution is easy to use.

The price of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection could be reduced to make it more competitive.

I have been using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for approximately one year.

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is stable.

We have had some issues and the support we received was good and quick.

I have used other solutions, such as Carbon Black and Trend Micro Deep Discovery Email Inspector. I found that Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is a much better solution because the search time is quicker and there are more alert results.

The configuration of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is easier than other solutions.

We did the deployment of the solution in-house.

The solution is priced high and could be less expensive compared to other solutions.

There is no maintenance needed for this solution, but we have analyzed the results from the findings from the alerts.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Microsoft Exchange Online Protection a ten out of ten.

We use the product to provide full email security protection policies.

We like the holding facility that is available for potentially suspicious URLs.  This allows a real-time review to be performed before the email reaches a user's inbox.

We would like the solution to have more in-built intelligence in the way that it reviews potential security risks, rather than our team constantly having to update the policies.

We have been using this solution for around 15 years.

We have found the stability of this solution to be good.

We have found the solution to be easily scalable when new users need to be added; this is a multi-tenant product.

We have found the support to be good.  However, the default first line of issue resolution for this product is the online community and FAQ pages.

The initial setup was very straightforward due to the solution being completely cloud-based.

Licenses for this solution are available as packages of different tiers. The package will differ depending on the features that an organization wants, but all packages come with some default features included.

We would advise organizations who wish to build customized policies that this will increase the implementation time for this solution.

We would also advise organizations to carry out extensive testing before implementing this solution; this will ensure that it is set up exactly the way that they need it to be.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We use the solution to receive emails. We do not use the calendar function as our clients are slow adaptors to the latest features.

When the product is being updated, it changes some of the setups. The support team is also not good.

I have been using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection since 2019.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. I've recommended the solution for small, medium, and large enterprises. 

The initial setup is straightforward. But if you do not know what you are doing then it can be troublesome. There are a lot of terms that they use for their online product. But we need to familiarize ourselves with the old jargon. 

The customers try to deploy it on their own and when they fail they involve us. The deployment takes a day because you still have to document everything you did. You still have to show the local admin what to do, and how to manage it. I can do the deployment myself, but I do it together with the local guys so that we can all be on the same load.

The pricing of the solution is reasonable. We are usually local, and most of our clients are in the development phase. So they're taking the governmental discount. We do not pay for extra support.

I advise people to use it. I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

We are using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for the migration of users from on-premise to the cloud.

The most valuable features of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection are the EOP, ATP, safe links, fishing, and antispam.

Not all settings can be configured automatically and most still require manual configuration. However, there is an automation tool available that can be used to input all the configurations either as a script or a tool it would be helpful.

I have been using Microsoft Exchange Online Protection for approximately three years.

The stability of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is good. We have not had many issues.

I rate the stability of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection a nine out of ten.

I have used Mimecast. I do not have a lot of experience in Mimecast. 

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection can handle a more broad range of areas than Mimecast.

The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection and streamlining is complex. When we use a feature and we try to streamline them based on its outcomes can be difficult, such as false positives.

We often use third-party tools for the deployment. We try and use Microsoft native tools, such as Office Configuration Analyzer.

I help my customers implement the solution and it typically takes one week with two consultants.

The price of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is reasonable.

If you're looking for recommendations, I suggest selecting the standard or strict settings provided by Microsoft for configuring Microsoft Exchange Online Protection. You can start with the standard settings and gradually increase the blocking and other settings such as spam confidence level based on your experience over time. It's important to keep in mind that further tuning may be required based on false positives and other factors, which will require manual adjustments based on experience. This configuration process is not a one-time setup and will evolve based on your customer experience.

I rate Microsoft Exchange Online Protection a nine out of ten.