No one likes to see too much fat anywhere. It is great when it lightly surrounds a New York strip steak, or slowly tenderizes a roast, but not in too many other places. It definitely does not belong in SQL transaction logs.

Unfortunately, some transaction logs get bigger and bigger, some by gigabytes a day, or even in hours. This is usually indicative of a problem.

The Altiris KB article entitled "Why is the SQL Transaction Log growing by Gigabytes Daily?" and found at https://kb.altiris.com/article.asp?article=35211&p=1
outlines one way that this can happen, and how to keep it from happening in the future.

A few months ago the development wheel starting turning again in my office. The focus this time was on Windows 7 -our baseline OS here is Windows XP, and the push to Windows 7 next year is inevitable.

We’ve got a software factory of sorts –two tireless packagers who spend their days creating wonders with vbscript (and occasionally WISE) to produce their hundred or so packages annually. I’m guessing at the number –I’ve never counted. It’s more fingers and toes than I’ve got that’s for sure.

And then of course we have our image factory. This uses scripted OS installs, and a vast number of configuration and software jobs to produce the desired XP image. The process is neat –the images are configured with Sysprep to work on all the 30 or so hardware variations we support. Using Altiris we just assemble a job list, and overnight we can set it off to script the OS, apply windows updates, the configs and then all the software. To complete, it’s a sysprep and upload. 

It’s all lovely and automated. And we can’t afford to move to Windows 7 until we have complete parity with XP in our imaging process. In short we need to keep the staff overhead down, so an automated process which injects smoothly into the current process is essential. The packagers were itching to begin testing on Windows 7, so as the imaging guy it was time for me to get moving.

Here was my checklist –very modest you’d think,

1. Find out how Windows 7 installs.
2. Find out how to script the installation of Windows 7
3. Find out how to sysprep Windows 7
4. Find out how to tweak sysprep images on delivery

I thought it would be easy -I wasn't even thinking hardware independent imaging at this point. But it wasn’t as straightforward as I had hoped -I had to actually read the docs.

1. Find out how Windows 7 Installs

After a few days scanning MSDN, I started trying to piece together the install process in my head. It turned out that we still have setup phases in Windows 7, but as we’re talking about Microsoft here, the terminology has of course changed,,

But that’s where the similarity ended with XP. Microsoft had provided an overwhelming depth of granularity to how Windows 7 installs through something called configuration passes. These appeared to be specific entry points into the Windows install process through which administrators could customise the install. There are 7 in total, and I’ve summarised each in the table below,
,

These passes were frankly imposing, but they were also evidently the key to understanding how to deploy windows 7. Each pass would be executed at specific point in the windows setup, allowing your preconfigured settings to be layered into the installation process. The entity controlling how these passes were configured was an XML file, and a quick scan of the internet will revealed a hideous number of them. And all of them ugly -in that special way that only XML can manage to be.

It was all a bit off putting, so I tried to put it all into context. I thought it best to go through and document a manual installation. So, I fired up a virtual machine, mounted our volume license Windows 7 ISO image and started making the following notes.

The screens which required some sort of input were as follows,

1. Enter Language, Keyboard and Time/Currency Format

 This was the start of what Microsoft call the  “Collecting Information” stage, and is part of the Windows PE phase. 

2. Confirm Install

Once I clicked  “Install Now”, setup had officially started. 

3. Eula

  As usual, this needs to be accepted before proceeding.

4. Installation Type –Upgrade or Custom?

  It’s a new install, so I clicked “Custom”

5. Windows Install Location

Here we are shown the disks which are available to install Windows. I was setting this up on a modest VM with a 10GB single disk. So all I had to do was just click ‘Next’

6. Installing Windows…

 This marks the end of the ‘Collecting Information’ phase, and have moved onto the “Installing Windows” stage. 

Once the installation features have finished, the updates will install and the installation will automatically reboot. After the reboot, the setup informed me that it was "Updating the registry" and "Starting the Windows Services" so that it can complete the installation.

Once the final configuration was complete, setup  once again rebooted the computer.

7. User Account Entry

Ah yes. It wants us to create a new account as using the administrator account is a no-no. Sensible.

8. User Password Entry

Easy enough. Like every good admin here I entered "password".

9. Windows Protection

10. Time and Date Settings

Well it says London, and that's pretty close. So I clicked 'Next'.

11. Network Location

After this, the windows settings were finalised and I was you able to logon. Windows 7 was installed!

Next I took a step back and reviewed the install process. I’m a sucker for powerpoint as a graphic builder, so I fired it up and starting to make a stab at summarising what I saw. The graphic below is the result, where each of the points itemised above in the install process are now represented by boxed number ranges.

So, user input was only required in the WinPE and Windows Welcome phases –these being at the start and end of the installation (step 6 wasn't really a user input stage, but more of a marker that the install process had begun). The graphic was comforting, but I knew the next step was going to try and reconcile this with the configuration passes.

So, I jumped, and dived. I immersed myself for two days in Windows 7 scripted installs and sysprep, downloading other peoples XML to configure the configuration passes. What didn’t work was as invaluable as what did, and at the end you’ll be delighted to hear I came up with another PowerPoint graphic.

And this graphic too was very comforting, so to spread the love I’ve pasted it below. The good news was that although there were 7 configuration passes, I would likely only ever need to worry about 4 of them. Very comforting indeed –anything which means I’ve achieved less work is worthy of a drink of two, so I went to the pub to congratulate myself.

The summarise the above picture: the deployment tree has two branches -one for scripted installs and another for sysprep. What is important to note is that during a scripted installation, we will only be considering the following passes,

And for sysprep deployments only these,

That of course begged the question what the other passes are for. We'll the Generalize pass is in the image creation stage, and is largely transparent to us -it's all run from sysrep when we seal our image. The Audit passes (yuch!) are aimed for those wanting to use Audit mode for preparing images, which seemed to be introducing a manual phase to image preparation. Hmm.. not for me. I needed parity with our XP setup –I needed complete automation. Complete power!! [Manic Laughter]. I digress…..

And this is where it got messy. I could put it off no longer. In order to write my own XML I would need to download the Windows Automated Installation Kit, the WAIK.

2. Find out how to script the installation of Windows 7

With each OS release, Microsoft releases a set of tools to help you configure and deploy that OS. With XP you had Microsoft's Deployment Tools, and with Vista/Windows 7 you have the Windows Automated Installation Kits. If I want to create my own XML files (rather than nick someone elses) the WAIK is the only way. Here's what I did:

1. Downloaded the Windows7 WAIK from Microsoft.com (this downloads as a 1.7GB ISO image KB3AIK.ISO)
2. Mount the ISO using  the ISO mounter permanently resident on my workstation - Daemon Tools (although no reason why you couldn't use  Virtual CloneDrive,  even mount the disk in a VM, or even burn the ISO to DVD)
3. Navigated to the root of the DVD, and double-click StartCD.exe (autoruns are naughty-naughty badness afterall)
4. In the WAIK welcome screen, I proceeded directly to the install. 
   
5. So, the underlying MSI kicked-off  and I turned off the brain cells as I clicked as many  'Next', 'I Agree' and 'OK', and 'What the Heck' buttons as required until its done. This took a while -the ISO was fairly large remember....  
6. All done, so I closed the WAIK welcome window

So, I gleefully scanned the Start Menu, and saw the entry  "Microsoft Windows AIK". Within this folder I found the  "Windows System Image Manager", the application which generates the XML files I needed to drive the configuration phases for my scripted installations and sysprep deliveries. This is often referred to as Windows SIM for short. Hmm... SIM... sounds strangely familiar somehow.... 

On firing up the Windows SIM, I was presented with the nice clean interface below. This is indeed comforting -its exactly the same jpg as others have observed.

This screen is split into 5 sections,

1. Distribution Share
   This is so that you can point SIM at a distribution share with Windows 7 install and configuration files. We won't be looking at distribution shares today.
    
2. Windows Image
   This is so you can point SIM at a Windows 7 image file, and browse the components within.
    
3. Answer File
   This pane allows you to build your answer file by configuring answers to selected components
    
4. Properties
   This gives a more detailed view of any component parameters you might want to configure
    
5. Messages
   This pane presents errors and warnings for the answer file build process

The next task is then to use Windows SIM  to create an answer file which Windows Setup will use to automate the installation. SIM will allow us to view all of the components available in a Windows image so that we can add  component settings to our answer file for specific configuration passes. In order for SIM to view the components in a windows image, we'll first need to point it at the windows image file for our particular Windows 7 flavour. 
 

1. From the File menu, I selected the option "Select Windows Image"
2. Now I had to point SIM at my chosen Windows 7 distribution's install.wim file (or the associated catalogue file). This could be from the DVD mounted on the same computer I'm running SIM from (or from a physical DVD of course), or from a filesystem where the DVD contents have been copied. With the DVD ISO mounted, I navigate to the sources folder, and located the catalogue file as illustrated below,
   

   This resulted in the Windows Image section being populated as follows,
   

3. From the File menu, I selected the option 'New Answer File". This populated the 'Answer File' pane with the Configuration Pass component placeholders as shown below. This looked daunting, but remember for scripted installs we only need to worry about the WindowsPE, OfflineServicing, specialize and oobeSystem configuration passes, and likewise for sysprep only the specialize and oobeSystem passes.

   
    

And that is SIM  now ready for me to add components so that I could create an unattend XML files for scripted or sysprep deliveries. At this point it was difficult to know where to begin with SIM when creating answer files, so I tried to keep in mind exactly what questions I wanted answered by the answer file. For example, from the manual installation I had to answer these,

1. Selecting Language, Time/Currency Format & Keyboard
2. Eula acceptance
3. New Copy of Windows being installed (custom)
4. Installing to disk 0
5. User Account details
6. Timezone
7. Network Location

SIM doesn't tell you where to find parameters within the available components, so this is where I needed a little help from other's answer files to get started. What I had to do next was not trivial -I needed to select the correct components from the myriad of components available in the windows image pane, apply them to correct  pass, and then configure the embedded settings as appropriate. After lot of trial and error, I came up with the process below. To make the instructions succinct, I'm presenting each setting value as a <setting>, <value>) pair. You'll get the idea. One handy feature of SIM is that if you have any problems understanding how to use any parameter, just right-click it in the properties pane and select help. The WSIM help is context sensitive and will throw you to the right place in the help file. Very useful.

So, without further adieu, below is the potted process which emerged for creating my Windows 7 scripted install unattend answer file,

1. In the Windows Image pane, select the component  x86_Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE_6.1.7600.16385_neutral, right-click and add to the WindowsPE pass. Using the Answer File and Properties panes, configure the following settings,

     InputLocale, 0809:00000809
     SystemLocale, en-GB
     UILanguage, en-US
     UserLocale, en-GB

   Note: In the above, I've configured the local settings for the United Kingdom, so  you'll need to configure as appropriate for where you are in the world. On watch point though -don't change the UILanguage from en-US. In my testing, Windows setup doesn't appear to like this setting being changed, and results in all your locale and language settings being ignored.
    

2. In the Windows Image pane, select the  component x86_Microsoft-Windows-Setup_6.1.7600.16385_neutral, right-click and add to the WindowsPE pass. Using the Answer File and Properties panes, configure the following settings,

     UserData\AcceptEula, true
     ImageInstall\OSImage\InstallTo\DiskID, 0
     ImageInstall\OSImage\InstallTo\PartitionID, 1

   Note: Microsoft's disk and partition numbering schemes are such that Disk 0 is the first disk and Partition 1 is the first partition.
    

3. In the Windows Image pane, select the component x86_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_6.1.7600.16385_neutral ,right-click and add to the oobeSystem pass. Using the Answer File and Properties panes, configure the following settings,

     TimeZone,GMT Standard Time
     OOBE\HideEulaPage,true
     OOBE\NetworkLocation,Work
     OOBE\ProtectYouPC,1
     
   Now right-click UserAccount\LocalAccounts and select "Insert new Local Account"
     UserAccount\LocalAccounts\Local Account\name, user
     UserAccount\LocalAccounts\Local Account\Group, Administrators
     UserAccount\LocalAccounts\Local Account[Name="user"]\password\value, userpwd
    
   Note: In the above I've created a new administrative account called user as part of the windows setup. The password is uninspiring -userpwd. You'll need to change this to suite how you' want your image to be setup. ProtectYourPC has three possible values: 1=Automatic Updates enabled, 2=Only Important Updates Installed, 3=Automatic Updated disabled.
    

4. In the Windows Image pane, select the component x86_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_6.1.7600.16385_neutral ,right-click and add to the Specialize pass. Using the Answer File and Properties panes, configure the following settings,
     ComputerName,test1-pc
    
   Note: Don't worry about changing the PC name from test1-pc as we'll be changing it soon so that this XML will work nicely in Windows 7 deployments through Deployment Server.
     
5. Save the XML
    
6. In the Messages pane, there will be a tonne of warning triangles. These are informational messages (or should be!) letting you know that lots of component options have been left unconfigured, and hence won't be explicitly saved into the file.

At this point, I always find it  rewarding to view the XML. On my system, double-clicking always throws up IE or FrontPage, so right-click and open in the world's best editor -Notepad. 

Good news -sysprep is still called sysprep! If you want to image Windows computers, sysprep is the tool you want. Many people avoid using sysprep -probably because Altiris have tried hard to implement an imaging process which does not require it. As a result, sysprep is a headache many Altiris administrators out there simply because they've have never had to deal with it to image computers. Sysprep is however the simplest way to introduce hardware independence and post-deployment tweaks into your imaging, so I always recommend people start playing with sysprep as soon as they can. 

It turns out that making a sysprep'd image with Deployment Server is now so easy, it's laughable as Windows 7 has sysprep built in. It's just a couple clicks more to create a imaging job with sysprep, than it is to create a standard disk image upload job. And once we've got a sysprep image uploaded, we can deploy it with a variety of customisations through a sysprep.xml file.

  
The steps I used for this were as follows,

1. Created a new Job, and called it "Create Windows 7 Sysprep Image"
2. Added a "Create Disk Image" task, setting the file path to ".\Images\Windows\Win7_Sysprep.img"
3. In the sysprep settings frame, checked the box "Prepare using sysprep" , and select the OS as "Windows 7 Enterprise"
4. In the Preboot environment drop-down, selected the WinPE boot option.
   
5. And clicked "Finish"

Then I just  dragged this job onto my recently installed  Windows 7 computer, after which it  syspreped and then automatically uploaded the sysprep'd disk image. I should point out at this stage that during sysprep the generalize configuration pass is invoked. We don't need to explicitly worry about this though, as it's all fairly transparent. 

It took  perhaps 20 minutes for sysprep to completed and with PXE booting enabled the computer rebooted at the end and automatically started uploading the image. I was fairly impressed (or probably more accurately, relieved).
At this point I really felt I was on a roll, and that was about to continue. Deploying the Sysprep image is very easy -in many situations you don't even need to create your own sysprep answer file! Just create a deploy job for your sysprep image in the Deployment Console and configure it to use the default answer file.

When you do this, your distribute disk image task should look as follows,

And if you were to take a look at the advanced settings, you'd see that Deployment Server's default answer file is going to be used. 

And that's pretty much it. You can now deploy your sysprep images to your heart's content. And no BCDEDIT scripts in sight. Good huh?

4. Find out how to Tweak Sysprep Images on Delivery

To tweak the sysprep images on delivery, we need to turn once again to the configuration passes and that XML. The good news continued -creating a Windows 7 sysprep answer file is very, very simple. If you remember, we only needed to worry about two configuration passes -the specialize and oobesystem passes. This is because Windows has already been installed, so the WindowsPE pass which controls the initial install process from the WIM file isn't available, and ditto for the OfflineServicing pass too.

So, I  once again returned to the Windows System Installation Manager. I opened up a blank answer file, and the final process I came up with is as follows, 

A New Beta Program Introduces Machine Translation of Connect Content

Accessing the great articles content on Symantec Connect in the language of your choice is now just a click away. As a beta program, we’ve introduced machine translation of article content that is available in five languages: French, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.

With real-time translations of Connect articles content, you can now experience both user interface and content in your native language. An easy-to-maneuver toggle lets you flip between source English content and the machine-translated language content for easy comparison. And a feedback survey on every page lets you rate the translation quality and let us know how we’re doing!

To access machine translated content:

Visit any article on Connect.

1. From the ‘Translations’ drop-down menu, click on the language of your choice under ‘Machine Translations’
2. Read the machine translation disclaimer – it’s important to note, especially with technical content, that there may be subtleties in the source language that don’t come across exactly. Note that you can always toggle between source language and your translation.
3. Once you’ve read the article, please provide feedback on the quality of the machine translation. We’ll use this feedback to continue to refine and improve our machine translation capabilities.
4. Close your translation once you’re done, and you’re back to the main Connect article page.

To view your Connect interface in another language:

1. From the top menu bar on Connect, click ‘English’.
2. Choose the language of your choice from the languages. Your interface experience automatically switches to that language.
3. To switch back, click on the language tab again, and choose English.

Any suggestions? We’d love to hear them.

FAQs

Q. What is machine translation, and how does it differ from other kinds of translations?
A. Unlike human translation, which uses a person to decode phrases, context and relevance, machine translation uses software exclusively to translate text from one natural language to another, providing more ‘literal’ translations without the contextual understanding.

While Machine Translation has come a long way it doesn’t, nor do we believe that it will ever provide perfect translation quality. We aim for comprehensibility with machine translation and we believe that our translation tool gets there most of the time. When it doesn’t we hope our customers will tell us that, so that over time, we can continue to improve the quality of the machine translated output.

Q. Can I access machine translations for other content types besides articles?
A. Currently, no. The beta program is limited to We do have plans to provide machine translations capabilities for other Connect content types in the future.

Q. What languages are supported?
A. We support French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese for both machine translations and translated user interface experience. Depending on demand, we will consider expanding these in future.

Q. What happens when I provide feedback?
A. Our translation team reviews all feedback, and will examine in detail issues with translated content that receives negative feedback to see if there are enhancements needed to improve the translation. 

在信息保护和管理领域，客户需求日新月异。市场力量的提升需要我们各有侧重、加大灵活性并加快速度。

身为赛门铁克的总裁兼首席执行官，我坚信在拆分为两家独立的业界领先公司后，我们的信息安全和信息管理业务能够更好地满足客户需求，牢牢把握住竞争机遇：一家以安全为核心业务，而另一家侧重于信息管理。 

赛门铁克的安全业务

赛门铁克将继续大力发展安全业务，使个人与企业都能够主动保护其信息。我们在威胁趋势方面拥有无可匹敌的遥测和分析技术。

通过建立统一的安全战略，我们将可发现、分析并掌握更多信息，与此同时，我们可提升在市场中的领导地位，其中该市场整体价值预期在 2018 年达到 380 亿美元。

赛门铁克的信息管理业务

信息管理业务将独立成为新的上市公司。其建立基础为我们在备份和恢复领域的领先技术以及我们横跨存储管理、归档、电子发现和群集的世界级产品组合。这是一次巨大的商机，因为预计到 2018 年整个市场价值将从当前的 110 亿美元增长至 160 亿美元。

我们预计在 2015 年底完成业务拆分，但我们对客户的承诺从始至终不会改变。事实上，此次拆分将更便于这两个业务顺应客户和合作伙伴的要求打入市场。

每个业务都侧重于自身的战略，具备独立组织结构的灵活性，可进一步推动加速发展，提升股东价值。

We need your help!  We would be grateful if you could give us about ten minutes of your time to help Symantec improve its knowledgebase content.

We know you want to get the right answers to your support questions, as quickly as possible. To do that, Symantec wants to provide you with online help articles that are easy to read and easy to use, and give you the information you need, when you want it. 

So that we can better understand your needs, we are asking for your feedback about two sample Symantec online help articles, each with two different versions. After you read the articles, please complete the short survey and share your opinions about the articles.  Thank you for your time—your responses will help us help you more effectively.

Test 1 – Push install Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 clients using Remote Push

Version A: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH224952

Version B: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH164327

Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GRQSNGQ

Test 2 - Disaster recovery best practices for Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1

Version A: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH160736

Version B: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH224995

Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GRWM5J7

We are pleased to announce that the beta program for the next release of Backup Exec, Backup Exec 15, is open for registration. This beta allows new and existing Backup Exec customers the opportunity to test, validate, and provide feedback on this upcoming release.

This beta release can be installed in both lab and production environments in all languages supported by Backup Exec. 

What’s new in Backup Exec 15?

Backup Exec 15 delivers powerful, flexible and easy-to-use backup and recovery for virtual and physical environments. By participating in the beta, you can be among the first to evaluate newly-supported platforms and reliability enhancements. Your feedback on product stability, features, and performance will help us to continue delivering a high quality product that you can trust. Backup Exec 15 includes:

·      Support for VMware vSphere 2015

·      Support for Oracle 12c

·      Fixes for customer-reported issues and bugs

Additionally, Backup Exec 15 includes the following platform updates:

·      SDR (Simplified Disaster Recovery) support for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 client

·      VMware vSphere 5.5 U2

·      Exchange 2013 Cumulative Update 6

·      SQL 2014 as a repository for the Backup Exec database

·      SCOM for 2007 and 2012

·      And more!
 

End of life items

·      Backup Exec 15 will not support Backup Exec servers running on 32-bit operating systems; however, remote servers with 32-bit operating systems will be supported using the Agent for Windows (AWS).

Forward-looking Statements: Any information regarding pre-release Symantec offerings, future updates or other planned modifications is subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec and therefore subject to change. This information is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied.  Customers who purchase Symantec offerings should make their purchase decision based upon features that are currently available.

Beta Availability

Backup Exec 15 will be available for download in the first quarter of CY 2015. We are opening beta registration early so that participants have ample time to register. We will provide more updates about the beta program closer to the launch.

If you are interested in participating in this Beta program, please click the link below and click “Join this Beta Program”.

Registration link: https://symbeta.symantec.com/callout/?callid=B5C9F823420C44A49A7596453FEDCE72

If you have questions about this beta program, please email: BnR_Beta@symantec.com.

We look forward to your interest and participation in the upcoming beta release of Backup Exec 15.

Best regards,
Backup Exec team

In part one of our focus on appliances, we talked about backup appliances in the data center acting in much the same set-it-and-forget-it way as appliances in our home. Though small in stature, these tiny giants provide a large footprint in terms of flexibility and efficiency. The first post stressed what may be the most important advantage of an appliance from a data center manager’s perspective: simplicity. Simple, efficient data backups provided by Purpose Built Backup Appliances (PBBAs) save time and eliminate headaches by backing up across platforms and clouds and providing the most reliable and efficient restore possible. Even more important than simply providing simplicity, PBBAs are a great way to create significant cost savings both in terms of capital and operating expenses.

On the operations side, consider that the average IT department currently spends 62% of their annual budget simply maintaining the current infrastructure. Any added bit of complexity or new system that needs to get integrated brings with it more staffing hours that need to be spent configuring, managing, and updating it, which makes matters even more complicated. Integrated appliances with strong management platforms can greatly reduce this headache by automating many of these processes, as well as delivering the “single pane of glass” to manage data protection.

Appliances can also help reduce capital expenditures in a variety of ways across the enterprise IT environment. The appliance’s simple, single point of upgrade means that upgrading firmware or software comes in a single patch instead of patches or upgrades for each component coming separately.

There’s also less need to refresh appliances as often as traditional systems due to the robust power and simplicity appliances contain, meaning their “useful life” extends far beyond the upfront investment. Speaking of the initial investment, having to replace or refresh one integrated appliance instead of multiple and separate components also reduces the enterprises capital expenditures. 

Consider the example of the NetBackup 5230 from our first post. This PBBA backs up data from physical and virtual servers as well as cloud data, essentially combining three data backup systems in one centralized hub. If the enterprise doesn’t currently have a cloud solution and decides to add one, the backup system for it is already in place in the form of an appliance.  Not to mention the saved energy costs in the form of fewer physical servers.

The decision is simple to make whether the enterprise is watching spending or sprawl: adding appliances saves both time, money, and reduces complexity. Consider adding them to your data center. 

eDiscovery admins are repeatedly being asked to do many things in a small amount of time. Even though technology has made their lives easier, the amount of data and the problems it comes with have consistently grown in the past decade, thereby increasing time spent on manual and repetitive tasks.

A smart eDiscovery tool should be able to adapt itself to a user’s workflow and increase efficiencies. One of the ways to squeeze more time out of the day is to let the software do the work by automating your workflow. This reduces the boredom and time spent doing repetitive tasks.

Why is it beneficial to automate?

• Automating redundant tasks can help free up time to focus on more important issues. For example, an admin doesn’t have to wait for processing to finish to plan out the next step in the eDiscovery workflow. They can just schedule what needs to happen when a certain action finishes and their workflow is repeated automatically
• Automating a task ensures that it’s defensible in court because an action with the same settings is run over and over. An audit trail of how many items were affected every time automation runs helps an admin keep a record for the courts if needed

Picture this…you’ve created a case and started processing. While you’re waiting, you can create automation rules that will kick in once the processing finishes. The first action you can set up is to look for responsive items and copy the matching items to a folder. You can then run another automated process that will identify privileged documents within the responsive documents, tag the results privileged, and move the matching items to a different folder.   

Another example is to automatically move documents tagged with a certain tag by first-pass reviewers to a folder so that second-pass reviewers can start their reviewing.

Every time new data is collected, the same rules are applied without any intervention from you.

What are some other ways that you’ve automated your workflows? 

On December 2^nd ,2014, SORT delivered another release and added the following features:

Contributor: Mario Ballano

With the holiday season around the corner, thoughts turn to a warm home brightened up by the twinkle of seasonal decorations. If you’re a geek like me, it’s always tempting to opt for the high-tech solution and control your festive lights with one of the growing number of home automation devices available. However, Symantec has found that some of these devices contain security flaws that could allow attackers to gain access to your home network. 

Two home automation hubs tested by Symantec had multiple security flaws that could potentially allow attackers to gain access to the hubs themselves and, by extension, to other devices connected to them. The issues aren't specific to these particular hubs; any connected device is potentially at risk. Many more smart home devices potentially have similar security flaws. 

While the explosion of internet-enabled devices, known as the Internet of Things (IoT), holds exciting possibilities for home automation, it also presents some serious security challenges and home users need to be aware that it isn’t just their PCs or smartphones that could be compromised by attackers. 

A Pandora’s Box  
There is a huge range of smart home devices that could find their way into your house this holiday season:

• Smart power plugs to control Christmas lights
• CCTV cameras to catch Santa’s visit
• Smart smoke detectors in case the Christmas tree catches fire
• Smart entertainment systems, allowing the festive music to follow you from room to room
• Smart thermostats to keep your home nice and warm
• Smart door locks to keep unwanted guests out
• Security alarm systems to keep your home safe while on vacation

Many of these smart home devices connect wirelessly to a central hub which lets you manage them all  from a smartphone or web browser. Apart from Wi-Fi, smart home devices use a wide range of communication protocols, such as Powerline, Z-Wave, Zigbee, in addition to custom radio protocols. We started our analysis with two smart power plug and hub combinations.

Smart hubs and security
The first hub we looked at uses Wi-Fi and its own radio protocol for communication. To ensure that the hub is running the latest version of its firmware, it periodically checks the internet for firmware updates. This is a good practice, as users are unlikely to manually update their IoT devices themselves and could potentially fall foul of unpatched, exploitable vulnerabilities.

However, in this case, the firmware updates were not digitally signed and were downloaded from an open Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) server. This could allow an attacker on the same network to redirect the device to a malicious TFTP server. There are several means of doing this such as through Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) poisoning or by changing the domain name system (DNS) settings. The TFTP server could then send a malicious firmware update to the device. If this happens, then the complete setup would be compromised and other connected devices could be attacked, as the attacker would have full control over the hub. 

This same smart hub uses a custom radio transmission protocol for sending commands to connected devices without any additional authentication or security implementation. Unfortunately, this allows for successful replay attacks. These are very simple attacks which allow an attacker within range of the network to intercept some of the traffic and then replay it back over the network. For example, a signal to open a garage door captured while you are leaving the house could be used again later in the day to gain access. The same can be done for turning on or off lights. The attacker doesn’t even need to understand the protocol, they simply have to capture the signal used to issue a command a replay it. 

The user can store this hub’s configuration details in a cloud service, allowing them to manage the device from the internet through any web browser. Unfortunately, the user’s account is protected by a simple, four-digit PIN code. This can be easily cracked with the tools available to today’s attackers. 

Apart from the problem of an attacker guessing the PIN code (especially considering how “1234” is a common, unsecure PIN choice for many users), there are other issues with this particular cloud service. We discovered that the backend server is susceptible to a blind SQL injection attack. This could potentially reveal other users’ configuration details or may even let the attacker take control of other accounts. This could let the attacker switch off Christmas tree lights, or worse, without even being close to the house.

Unfortunately, the second smart home hub that we tested was not much better. This one did not use any authentication method for commands that were sent in the internal network. If an attacker is on the same Wi-Fi network as the hub, then they could gain control of any device connected to the hub. They could even go a step further, as the hub had a remote code execution vulnerability, allowing the attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the hub.

Risks to your smart home
These hubs are just two examples of what we managed to compromise in a short space of time and are the latest in a long line of security flaws found in smart home devices. For example, there have been cases where people modified the thermostat of their ex-spouse or disabled security locks. Recent reports warned of how thousands of webcams and baby monitors are accessible to anyone from the internet. There have also been reports of people taking control of home automation systems belonging to others.

In general, we have found that smart home device sensors can be attacked directly, for example by modifying the firmware through physical access to the device’s JTAG interface. The attackers could then sell the modified device to someone else, potentially compromising other devices or networks in their home. 

Depending on the Wi-Fi network’s security settings, attackers could intercept communications from an IoT device to the central hub, smartphone, or the cloud and inject their own commands. 

Additionally, if a backend cloud server is used for remote administration, this part also needs to be protected. Attackers could attempt to brute-force passwords to gain access to this server.

You may say that switching someone’s lights on and off is not such a big deal. This may be true, but the effects of a smart home attack are more relevant to security when you are on vacation. Some people may use remote-controlled lights to pretend that someone is still at home to keep burglars away. Smart thieves could also use open IP webcams to check if the owners are at home and where their valuable items are. 

Another possible avenue for attackers to explore would be to apply the proven-to-work model of ransomware to the smart home. The homeowner could be coerced to pay a ransom in order to turn up the heating or even just to watch TV. This is a creepy potential paradise for stalkers, burglars, and other shady characters.

Smart protection
You should be vigilant when installing smart home devices and make sure that you understand the devices’ configuration settings. We at Symantec will keep our eyes open on the smart home device market and continue to inform vendors about discovered weaknesses in the devices we study.

Security varies a lot with different smart home devices, so it is difficult to give generic advice to users. Here are a few points to consider when installing smart home devices:

• Only enable remote administration from the internet if you really need it
• Set a strong password for the devices where possible
• Use strong passwords and WP2 encryption to protect your Wi-Fi network
• Use trusted smart home brands from companies that invest in security

The Cloud Email Security Problem

Security, compliance and governance are key inhibitors to cloud email adoption in enterprises. When we talk with CISOs, it’s clear that no one is willing to lose visibility and control of confidential information like intellectual property and regulated data when they move to the cloud. And by giving up direct control over your email servers, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure that well-meaning insiders and malicious actors won’t be able to leak or gain access to the valuable information stored on them.

The Symantec R&D team has been hard at work building a new enterprise-grade security solution to help you confidently move to cloud email without sacrificing visibility and control. Symantec Data Loss Prevention Cloud Prevent for Microsoft Office 365 seamlessly integrates the market-leading DLP technology with Exchange Online so you can proactively monitor and protect confidential email messages sent from the Microsoft Cloud. Unlike other solutions that provide limited data security controls, it delivers deep content inspection, sophisticated policy and incident management, and proven scalability and performance.

Solution Features & Benefits

Cloud Prevent is a content-aware data security solution that monitors and protects confidential email sent from your Microsoft-hosted Exchange Online, and delivers the following benefits:

• Lowers total cost of ownership by reducing on-premises detection servers (CAPEX) and administration overhead (OPEX) 
• Delivers faster time to value than on-premises solutions by leveraging on-demand provisioning, management and scaling of cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) for DLP
• Quickly and easily extends current data loss policies and workflows when you migrate your on-premises Exchange servers to the Microsoft cloud.

Cloud Prevent enables you to redirect or block email containing confidential data in the subject, body or attachments. It also seamlessly integrates with Symantec’s market-leading Email Security.cloud services, which include anti-spam, anti-malware and policy-based encryption, to provide comprehensive email security for Exchange Online. Additionally, current Symantec Data Loss Prevention customers can get more value from their DLP investment by leveraging their existing data loss policies and incident remediation workflows for Cloud Prevent.

Learn More

To learn more about Symantec Data Loss Prevention Cloud Prevent for Microsoft Office 365, please read the attached data sheet or visit go.symantec.com/dlp.

While doing an online search for “SSL Certificates” and one of the ads said “$4.99, Why Pay More?”  Without clicking on the ad I know what they are going to offer me; a simple domain validated (DV) SSL certificate.  This certificate will encrypt my site’s traffic at a basic level but this isn’t 1997; the business climate and threat landscape have changed and so have our requirements for security.  SSL is more than encryption.  We have to consider trust, security, service, certificate management & reliability.  While many Certification Authorities are cutting corners to compete with each other on price, Symantec is working around the clock to continually deliver best-in-class solutions.  At Symantec we believe in these core factors as does 91% of the fortune 500 and 94 of the top 100 financial institutions in the world.  Here’s why:

1. Increased End-Consumer Trust

• Trust Seal -- Trust seals suggest that websites are safe to interact with.  The Norton Secured Seal has been shown through independent research to be the most recognized trust seal on the Internet.  Offered only by Symantec, it is seen about 4 billion times per month on websites all around the world.  The seal ensures visitors that they are communicating with organizations that not only encrypt their traffic but also are legitimate organizations that have gone through Symantec’s strong authentication screening as well.
  

• Visual Cue -- The “Green Bar” also represent that a site is trustworthy.   With Symantec EV Certificates, browsers will change the color of the address bar to green, serving as a cue for safe interaction.  DV certificates won’t provide for a visual cue to website visitors
  

2. Stronger Business Authentication and Website Security

• Authentication -- With every Symantec certificate, Symantec performs strong authentication to ensure that a website visitor can trust who they are communicating with.  Security-minded organizations realize that encryption alone is not enough and require, as a matter of policy, that all certificates issued for their organization have strong authentication.  On the other hand, domain validated certificates, like those that Let’s Encrypt intends to offer, will only provide encryption of data.   Thus, they will not prevent a credit card number or password from going to an encrypted website that may be fraudulent.

• Scanning and Alerts -- Symantec products also secure customer websites with scanning for critical vulnerabilities and active malware.  Symantec proactively notifies customers about security risks within a customer’s unique environment and provides guidance to ensure that such issues are quickly and easily resolved. 

3. Simplified Certificate Management and Live Worldwide Support

• Management Tools -- Symantec enables customers to track and manage large volumes of certificates with a wide range of tools.  Organizations are often burdened with the complexity of managing a variety of SSL certificates that may include of self-signed, client certificates or SSL certificates that chain up to public roots.
  

• Accessible Technical Support -- Symantec provides 24/7/365 support worldwide to ensure that customers’ sites stay up and running and secure, with an optional premium support that include SLA’s on problem escalation and resolution.  This is a critical component for organizations that need to ensure that their website operations remain.  A free offering like Let’s Encrypt rarely comes with any form of live support.

4. Powerful Technical Capabilities and Advanced Options

• Client Ubiquity -- As the longest operating Certification Authority, Symantec’s roots are in more clients than any other Certification Authority.  Organizations that want to support Always on SSL and connectivity with the greatest number of users choose Symantec to secure their transactions.

• Advanced Certificate Options -- Symantec Secure Site Pro products include both RSA 2048 bit certificates and ECC 256 bit certificates which are optimal within Perfect Forward Secrecy.  These high security, high performance certificates are the future of SSL/TLS encryption and Symantec’s ECC roots are in more clients than any other Certification Authority.

• Best in Class Revocation -- Symantec provides revocation information to clients through both the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) and Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs).  Both of these services are updated continually to communicate certificate revocation activity to clients worldwide.  The services are tuned to provide the fastest response times possible.   In the case of websites, OCSP response times can impact page load times and Symantec has invested in its infrastructure to provide OCSP responses in about 50 milliseconds for almost every major region in the world.  
  

5. Reliable Security and Business  Assurances

• Warranties -- Symantec offers the highest warranties of any Certification Authority.  These warranties can cover customers for losses of up to $1,750,000 from incorrect information contained on Symantec certificates.

• Military-Grade Data Centers -- Symantec’s roots and signing services are protected by the most stringent physical, network, and logical security and process controls.   The hardened facilities provide our customers with confidence that certificate issuance for their domains will not be compromised.  With ten years of continuous uptime, Symantec’s robust continuity practices are the best in the industry.

• Contractual Commitments -- Symantec customers have a contractual commitment from Symantec to maintain their products for the term of their contract.  Let’s Encrypt, as a non-profit, open-source Certification Authority, it will be difficult to offer such contractual guarantees, given the significant expenses associated with operating a publicly audited Certification Authority.
  

• Focused investment – As the world’s largest security company, Symantec has both the resources and the motivation to ensure that the our SSL products are uncompromised.  Vulnerabilities like Heartbleed have clearly demonstrated that, despite the good intentions of OpenSSL, a non-profit organization with limited resources will be challenged to keep up with the rapidly-changing security threat landscape.

Modern Security for Modern Needs

Companies that know security understand they need to use modern-day security solutions in today’s environment and that SSL is more than just simple encryption.Please keep all of these factors in mind as you are building out your webserver security plans.For more information on Symantec SSL, please visit our website.

Thanks to all those who attended our webcast today on Deployment Solution.

• Download or Playback the Webcast Recording
• Slides used during the webcast are included with this blog post
• Part 2 of this webcast will be on February 4. Mark your calendar!
• We will update this post by adding the Q&A in the next few days

Guest post by Ouafae Alami, 2014 Emerging Leader from Morocco

Being selected in the 2014 TechWomen program has been a dream one true. One month already spent in Silicon Valley–the temple of technologies that every engineer dreams to visit–I can’t begin to describe my feelings! One thing I can say is something in my has changed; my life perception has changed. Visiting LinkedIn,Twitter, Mozilla, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Facebook and many other innovative companies is dream that came true because of the TechWomen program.

These big companies are more than just than big logos. Being inside their headquarters and in the executive briefing centers, and discussing with the top management of others has changed my perception of driving a business. I feel even more proud of working in STEM fields. I am even more motivated to advance my career as a woman in STEM, with the belief that starting small but thinking big is the philosophy behind Silicon Valley success.

My Mentorship at Symantec: An experience that begins with an inspiring speech and ends with an idea to advance STEM in Morocco

The TechWomen Emerging Leader Orientation was hosted by Symantec. I was excited to have the opportunity to discover host company a few days before my first official work day. My favorite memory of this day was an inspiring speech done by the CIO of Symantec, Sheila Jordan. She gave a a great speech in which one quote began to change my life perception: “If someone gives you an opportunity, never say no even if you are not ready. Accept the challenge and learn how to do it in parallel.”

Read more about Ouafae Alami's experience as a 2014 Emerging Leader from Morocco.

Any one have a migration script that i can use from netbackup 7.5 to 7.6 to migrate all the policies and catalogs from old system 7.5 to new system 7.6??

Thanks in Advance.

A deduplicated backup copy of data will certainly save on storage costs but does it provide the actual protection or does it just provide a false sense of security?

Data breaches are becoming a sad fact of life for enterprise IT departments, and all staff members are being asked to become increasingly vigilant about security.

Read More

By Gokhan Say, Country Director, Turkey

Last year, the Corporate Responsibility team launched the Symantec Service Corps, a month-long pro bono initiative designed to support Symantec’s commitment to making positive social impact, building cultural awareness, and developing leaders across all levels of the organization, all while helping to enhance Symantec’s brand and reputation. Last year’s team worked with three organizations in Peru, applying their professional skills to organizational restructuring and succession planning, marketing analysis, and improving and securing financial systems

I’m very excited that this year’s team is coming to Turkey. This is a great opportunity not only for the employees selected, but also for those of us here in-country – we’re happy to have the opportunity to introduce more of our Symantec colleagues to the sights, sounds, and tastes of our home country while they help worthy Turkish organizations fulfill their charitable missions more efficiently and effectively.
 

Congratulations to this year’s team!

Additionally, Regina Velarde will serve as this year’s alternate. Regina will attend the first month of training so that she can step in if someone is unable to participate. If she does not end up joining this year’s team, she will be guaranteed an interview for next year’s trip.

These employees were selected based on a combination of their application essays, consultation with HR business partners, and alignment with nonprofit needs. The selection team looks for employees that demonstrate flexibility to changing circumstances, adaptability, a “can do” attitude, an established interest in skills-based service, a sense of adventure, openness to new ideas and cultures, and a desire to step out of their comfort zone.

“I am ready for a new challenge and an opportunity to work together with others to make a global impact,” says Tammi Dooley. “The Service Corps project in Turkey would be the perfect venue.”

Adds Travis Goldberg, “I would also be proud to represent Symantec as a spokesperson of corporate responsibility through action, innovation, and effective teamwork.”

Participation in the Service Corps is a great way to further develop leadership, change management, and cultural adaptability skills – all things that we need to succeed in business, and in life!

I hope that you will join me in congratulating this excellent team, and in following along on their journey as they spend the next several months preparing for their assignments.

Additional information

• Visit the Symantec Service Corps overview page for more information.
• Travel along with the Service Corps team through the public-facing Web site: http://symantecservicecorps.com/
• Immediate questions? Please email Community Relations.