MessageLabs, best known as a provider of e-mail security services, last week introduced a managed e-mail backup service that has as a selling point the same security features built into the company's other products.

The security angle could be an important feature for MessageLabs, since security is a recurring issue for remote backup systems.

Like the company's other products, MessageLabs Email Continuity is software-as-a-service (SaaS) and is integrated with other offerings such as encryption or content policy enforcement services, MessageLabs said.

The service enables continuous Outlook, webmail and BlackBerry access and can scale up to the needs of large organizations, the company said.

Failover can be activated within a minute, and administrators can specify which parts of the organization have been affected by an outage. Priority can also be set for which systems are synchronized back to Exchange once the outage is over.

Synchronization covers corporate directories, user accounts, contacts, calendars and distribution lists, and sent and received e-mail data is restored to the primary system along with forensic information after the outage, MessageLabs said.

Administrators have the option of a retention feature, where the backup system gets an encrypted copy of every e-mail sent or received while the primary system is operating normally, as an extra safeguard.

The system cuts back on bandwidth usage by sending only a single copy of each e-mail to the backup system, even for messages sent to multiple recipients.

MessageLabs has made its reputation through e-mail security services, with offerings such as the Boundary Encryption Service, protecting e-mail sent between business partners, and Email Content Control and Email Image Control, which scan e-mails for inappropriate, confidential or malicious content sent or received by an organization's employees.