Rand Refinery, the largest gold refining and smelting complex in the world, has completed a 260-seat Mimecast Unified Email Management (UEM) implementation as part of its disaster recovery, security and compliance plans.
Apart from the stringent compliance requirements that are critical to Rand Refinery (it has many of its own, plus those of its major shareholders), the practical priority for the IT team is providing the constant e-mail availability that users demand.
The operation needs a service that will always be available, even if onsite mail systems went down. Mimecast's UEM service ensures that users can continue to use their e-mail and access important information via a secure Web interface regardless of whether or not the Microsoft Exchange server is connected to the Internet.
Neri Credo, CIO at Rand Refinery, explains: “The IT systems are absolutely critical to the company. We could go under in a matter of days if major systems become unavailable and we lose track of the gold. We're very intent on good governance - and being able to recover from any situation.” The company is internally audited by its primary shareholder, AngloGold Ashanti, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and subject to Sarbanes-Oxley and other legislation requiring exceptionally strict adherence to data retention and compliance standards.
Mimecast's software as a service model enables Rand Refinery to mitigate the risks associated with e-mail. Key factors in the decision to implement Mimecast were the ironclad compliance features in both document retention and e-discovery, with complete chain of custody and forensic audit trails through Mimecast's 10-year bottomless archiving in secure, triple-redundant data centres.
“We now provide consistent and continuous e-mail access for all our users. We have reduced spam, implemented a 10-year e-mail archive with endless storage capacity and rolled out a number of data leak prevention policies across the whole company,” says Credo.
A consequence of Mimecast's SaaS model is that the IT department is able to provide better and less support-intensive e-mail access to managers working remotely. Users can search the archives remotely via a Web console or the Mimecast Services for Outlook, and access their entire mail store, including old deleted items.
“The IT team no longer has to deal with the mundane but time-consuming 'oh, I accidentally deleted a mail, can you get it back?' requests from users,” says Credo. “A major value in how Mimecast provides access to the archive is that users can help themselves, recovering deleted e-mails within a couple of clicks.” This factor is critical in nipping potentially serious disagreements with suppliers or customers in the bud, as relevant correspondence can be pulled up instantly by the person concerned, no matter how old.
“What first convinced me to look seriously at Mimecast was the sales people's passion, and the responsiveness of the technical team when we were piloting the solution. The transition onto Mimecast impressed me immensely - it was seamless, completely transparent to the users, and very fast,” explains Credo.
Mimecast Unified Email Management has provided Rand Refinery with a comprehensive solution, which enables e-mail continuity, reduces risk and elegantly solves compliance concerns, all of which has been implemented quickly and effectively.
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