Enterprise Vault, as complex as an enterprise.
August 21, 2014
Enterprise Vault, as complex as an enterprise.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
9.0.4
Modules Used
- Ev for Exchange
- Discovery Accelerator
Overall Satisfaction with Symantec Enterprise
It is used by my entire enterprise for email archival and compliance reasons. It has a twofold purpose, to keep mailbox sizes down and to keep a copy of messages for compliance requirements and retention.
- Single instance storage is an important feature. Despite the cost of storage going down commercially, data center storage is still rather costly and email has exploded in its sizes across the board. Microsoft has done away with single instance storage in their products despite the fact that email is commonly sent to multiples and groups of people.
- Giving structure to email is what Enterprise Vault does. Since email has an unstructured database, structure generally helps for faster searches and indexing. With a well tuned EV system, excellent and complex searches can be obtained.
- Symantec has always provided excellent Technical support to their EV product. I have always been pleased with their support when I have been deeply perplexed by an issue.
- Enterprise Vault is a complex product and requires good administrative support. This can be tough for short staffed companies needing a system that is more "setup and forget" while working other other IT systems. I wish EV was a bit more easy to administer.
- Be careful about the Vault Store choices you make. There are some proprietary storage systems that EV supports that modifies they way items are stored. (like, Hitachi Streamer Storage, HCP). If you ever need to migrate away from one storage system to another - do not use proprietary formatted vault storage systems. If you ask me, Symantec should not certify any storage system that uses a proprietary format.
- Quicker access and support for eDiscovery requests on email from Legal dept.
- Difficult to maintain without more dedicated time to support the system.
I have not been able to evaluate other products.