Hello Folks\experts\system admins,

Since past year there is lot of information related to backup software and cloud integration. Cloud technology from different vendors like microsoft,amazon, google, AT&T etc. They are very aggressive in marketing their cloud and providing APIs to integrate with backup software. Symantec also came up with latest version of Netbackup with focus on cloud. Even various other companies and products like vmware , netapp etc all are integrating with cloud at a very high rate and coming with new features related to cloud. 
CLOUD is next big thing for IT infrastructure, data centers and data protection backup software.

There are pros in moving towards cloud like - total cost of ownership will come down, Corporations do not have to pay for data center equipments\devices. Access to flexible storage, data encryption, Sync to remote\DR site etc. Just name a backup software feature and cloud offer it already

What I wonder about is disk based device and tapes. Is this the END of disk based device and tapes ?? Even though I found disk based appliances are growing at rapid pace. We all know in IT sector one technology kills the other. If this is the end of disk and tapes due to advent of cloud technology then role of backup admin will change drastically. There would be simply be no tape management and disk appliance management, no firmware upgrade, no version upgrade. We do not even have to learn those commands example vmoprcmd and various datadomain , NBU appliance commands.

As cloud become more and more popular, is it powerful enough to handle 7.9 TB data backup per day. (it is smallest data center i work on). We do have bigger environment that it as well. I work for a cash rich corporation where soon everything would be move to cloud based backup.

To sum up I have 3 questions :
1) Is this the END of disk based device and tape based backup ?
2) Will role of backup admin will change or go obsolete ?
3) Is cloud technology good enough to handle backup environment whose catalog data is 1800 GB ?

Your expert comments, views and criticism is most welcome.

Most organisations already have more information than they can handle and the rate at which this is expanding is staggering – yet many are struggling to understand exactly what that data is, and how to control and manage it. Failure to put the right policies and procedures in place can lead to chaos, whereas the most successful businesses know exactly where their data resides – cloud, hypervisors, storage devices etc. – and therefore what really matters and must be retained.

Which brings us to a basic, and critical, misconception about data: more is not necessarily better. Not all data is created equal, even though it is often managed as if it were! Too many organisations assume that, if the data is already within its walls, it must be performing some valuable function, so they deal with this by buying in more infrastructure. This is not a good idea. Why? Because all of the ‘dead data’ within their remit – the unidentified, unclassified information – simply spreads its tentacles, wearing down the organisation. That data does nothing to drive the business, but simply sits in the passenger seat, taking the business for a ride.

The alternative is far more attractive and beneficial: to transform the data they hold so that it becomes the true lifeblood of the organisation, instead of clogging up its arteries. That means having some manageable form that works into the volumes where the data is created, identifying what matters – and needs to be properly protected – and what can be discarded. Unless an organisation gains such insights, they will be at the mercy of any attacker who might penetrate their defences and gain access to their rich (i.e., valuable) data.

On top of that, there is the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that everyone needs to be aware of, especially where that relates to personal data and how that flows across an organisation. Compliancy and the legal implications of data are thus even more paramount. Businesses found to be non-compliant could be hit with fines of up to 1 million EUR or 2% of annual worldwide turnover (Source: Data Center Journal).

So, rather than slapping a ‘Company Confidential Data’ label on everything, enterprises need to be thinking about what their data is, and its value or otherwise, employing the right analytics to gauge its sensitivity and true value. Equally, when the results of such analysis come through, do they have the appropriate controls over such results in place? Unless they do, the analysis may well be compromised.

A common complaint I hear is that having proper and full control over today’s burgeoning data is just too hard to achieve. One reason many organisations see data this way is that they start from the wrong position: with the technology. Instead, they should start by pinpointing what data really matters and how they are going to use it. Data classification not only creates the right levels of access when applied across the business, it also prevents over-restrictive practices. Only when they have taken proper ownership of their information should they turn to prevention and blocking.

Organisations also need to be mindful of the IT-business conundrum. IT may be looking at data without understanding the wider needs of the business, while business may see it more as ‘an IT thing’. Really, IT should be providing the tools and business the insight. Therefore the processes in place must make it easier for businesses to make decisions and not be expected to become technology experts. This approach works well with Symantec’s own technology, which is tightly built around business process.

A final thought: the reason that Data Loss Prevention (DLP) projects have failed is often because people have started with the technology, imagining this will solve their problems by telling them what data matters to them. But really technology is an enforcer. What organisations must do first is acquire a deep understanding of what their data actually is and how that should be processed. Technology, important as it is, should be the last stage.

I look forward to your thoughts on this topic.

Corporate responsibility is about more, not less: more value creation, more collaboration, more diversity and more passion. This belief in continuous growth and improvement is central to our approach to corporate responsibility here at Symantec.

It’s been a busy year for us with dozens of new product releases, global expansion of our services and a historic decision to split the company into two stand-alone entities – one focused on security and the other on information management. Amidst all the activity and progress, we remain laser-focused on our commitment to corporate responsibility, because we’ve seen time and time again that it provides clear value to our employees and our business, the environment and society.

I’m pleased to share that we just released our FY15 Corporate Responsibility Report. Because your feedback is important to us, and helps us keep growing, we invite you to take our stakeholder feedback survey and vote on how we should direct a $10,000 grant toward one of the causes we care about.

This year’s Corporate Responsibility Report showcases our continued commitment to positive growth, whether that’s through our efforts to build a more diverse and inclusive workplace, the expansion of our signature Symantec Cyber Career Connection (SC3) program, or our commitments to volunteerism and the environment. Below, we highlight a few of these goals and achievements:

Grace Hopper Conference 2014 in Phoenix, AZ 

• Growing our diverse workforce: Our goal is to increase the diversity of our workforce at all levels by 15 percent by 2020 (with FY14 as our baseline). Our partnerships are our greatest asset here – Net Impact, Anita Borg Institute and others enable us to build a pipeline of diverse employees and target inequity where it matters most: cultural norms.

For example, our partnership with Net Impact has helped the organization build student chapters at 20 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Women’s Colleges across the country – filling the pipeline of diverse students in positions of social impact.

We also expanded our Diversity and Inclusion team this year and invested significantly more resources in programs related to LGBT, veterans, professionals of color and people with disabilities. We’re confident that these investments of time, energy and money will pay off across our company and ultimately, society.

Middle school students from AAUW's Tech Trek Stanford tour Symantec's Mountain View headquarters 

• Growing STEM and cyber professionals: Our goal is to excite, engage and educate 1 million students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by 2020. We have invested nearly $3.2 million dollars in this cause and engaged 272,299 students globally through our non-profit partnerships such as Science Buddies, Boys & Girls Clubs of America and AAUW Tech Trek this fiscal year.

Our signature CR program, the Symantec Cyber Career Connection (SC3) in partnership with NPower and Year Up, successfully launched two pilot programs in three cities and we saw the first cohort of graduates this summer receive internships and full time jobs. This program is helping move the needle on key industry issues (lack of diversity and gap in jobs) by bringing a diverse population of workers to fill much-needed cybersecurity careers.

One hundred percent of the first class of SC3 graduates secured and completed internships, 72 percent received internship extensions or full-time job offers and 100 percent of these students are people of color (Black and Hispanic). We also announced the expansion of the SC3 program to Texas and India and are broadening the diversity of the participants to include veteransWe couldn’t be more excited to further scale this program in the coming years.

Symantec Service Corps 2015 in Ankara, Turkey

• Growing employees’ passion and commitment to society and the environment: We recognize the value of giving back with both time and money, as well as the importance of setting ambitious goals when it comes to the environment.

This year, we continued to expand our philanthropic partnerships, as well as the opportunities our employees have to apply their skills to societal problems. We aim to complete 84,000 employee volunteer hours by 2020, and in FY15 offered a variety of programs to make giving back easier for employees. For instance, the Symantec Service Corps, a team of high-performing, high-potential employees, spent a month providing pro bono expertise to three nonprofits in Ankara, Turkey this year. We also launched virtual volunteering across the company to enable employees to volunteer from their desks, homes or wherever they have an Internet connection. Our philanthropic giving in FY15 totaled $5.29 million, with an additional $25 million in software donated to organizations in 38 countries.

We’re also setting firm environmental and human rights goals. By the end of 2015, we aim to certify all our products as 100 percent Energy Star, and by the end of 2017 validate our products as conflict-free across all minerals. Furthermore, we aim to set a greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal after legal separation of the company is complete; in the meantime, we have enacted commitments around our supply chain and water use. As a member of Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), we have adopted a code of conduct that will apply to all suppliers by the end of 2016.

We invite you to read more about our efforts this past year by viewing the full Corporate Responsibility Report. By providing your valuable feedback via this survey, you’ll be able to vote on which of these three nonprofits receives a $10K grant to honor the work they do, which is closely tied to our own goals for corporate responsibility: Code.org, Anita Borg Institute and the Family Online Safety Institute.

We look forward to exciting times ahead, with an opportunity to continue to set and meet ambitious goals and celebrate change and positive growth across our company.

Cecily Joseph is Symantec's VP, Corporate Responsibility and Chief Diversity Officer

One of the top support calls we receive is around failed installations of Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition. You may see an error message similar to the one attached to this blog. If you get this message, and are looking for assistance, please follow the below instructions for how to get help.

Step 1: Gather installation logs and reference number:

·%Programdata%\NortonInstaller\Logs\*all contents*

·%Programdata%\Symantec.Cloud\syminstall\*all contents*

Step 2: Create a case following the normal case creation methods below, and provide the installation logs and reference number.

·Call 800-342-0652 and have the account name and email ready

·Login at https://hostedendpoint.spn.com and use the “Support” pull down menu to create a case

For additional support concerns, please review these documents:

https://support.symantec.com/en_US/more-articles.64357.html?channelRefKey=null&localeCode=en_US&startDateInString=01%2F14%2F11&endDateInString=null&updatedSinceDateInString=null&viewRefKeys=ENTERPRISE&usergroupRefKeys=PUBLIC&categoryReferenceKey=64357&caselinkCaseValues=null&primarySortField=PUBLISHEDDATE&componentTitle=Recent+Articles

The Symantec Technical Education team is pleased to announce the availability of 8 new training modules for the eDiscovery Platform version 8.1 focusing on troubleshooting. These training videos are free to all and compliment the Instructor Led Training and Virtual Academy Training already available.

To access the content you will need to first register for access to the eLibrary here: http://go.symantec.com/education_elibrary

Once registered you can quickly and easily navigate to the training.  There are many other training video's already available so worth a browse to find other topics that may interest you!

Here's an overview of the new troubleshooting modules:        

Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting basics (1 of 8)

This video describes a useful troubleshooting methodology and also explains how to begin isolating troubleshooting issues when working with eDiscovery Platform.

14 mins

Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting tools overview (2 of 8)

This video identifies and explains how to use tools and utilities that help with troubleshooting eDiscovery Platform

38 mins

Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting Legal Holds (3 of 8)

This video describes how Legal Hold works and explains how to utilize logs and reports in troubleshooting Legal Holds. It also describes specific troubleshooting steps to take when confronted with common issues that affect Legal Holds.

23 mins

Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting Collections (4 of 8)

This video describes how Collections work and explains how to utilize logs and reports in troubleshooting Collections. It also describes specific troubleshooting steps to take when confronted with common issues that affect Collections.

29 mins

 Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting pre-processing, processing and post-processing (5 of 8)

This video describes how the three types of eDiscovery Platform processing work and explains how to utilize logs and reports in troubleshooting all types of processing. It also describes specific troubleshooting steps to take when confronted with common issues.

27 mins

Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting - Troubleshooting Review and Analysis (6 of 8)

This video describes how Review and Analysis work and explains how to utilize logs and reports in troubleshooting this function area. It also describes specific troubleshooting steps to take when confronted with common issues that affect Review and Analysis.

28 mins

Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting – Troubleshooting Exports and Production (7 of 8)

This video describes how Exports and Production work and explains how to utilize logs and reports in troubleshooting Exports and Production. It also describes specific troubleshooting steps to take when confronted with common issues that affect this function area

25 mins

Symantec eDiscovery Platform 8.1: Troubleshooting - Miscellaneous issues (8 of 8)

This video looks behind the scenes at installations and upgrades, describes how to perform on-demand backups and restores and explains how to utilize eDiscovery Platform scheduling.

29 mins

Enjoy!

Often we get asked how to troubleshoot Enterprise Vault for SharePoint issues, so here is a little bit of information. A good starting point is to check:

How to check that the Enterprise Vault SharePoint components are installed and configured on the SharePoint Web FrontEnds. http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO60773

This will help you ensure you have the necessary components.

When installing, you want to make sure you are logged in as the Farm Admin account (or an account with proper permissions per the guide), however, when you run the SharePoint Configuration you want to be logged in as the Vault Service Account.

Dtraces will often help, though many people do not know what to dtrace. On your SharePoint FrontEnds you will want to dtrace AdminService for sure. On the EV server you can dtrace EVSharePointArchiveTask.

SharePoint Designer can also be helpful for looking at archived item properties should you need to.

What did you do this summer?

For most people, summer is their favorite season of the year. And why not – it means long sun-filled days, barbeques and picnics in the park, and holiday time. This summer, Symantec employees from the Green Park office in the UK spent some of their summer time using their skills for charity. The Sales team exercised their savvy business skills in a friendly charity competition in support of Naomi House, a well-known children’s hospice in the UK. Business in the Community (BITC) also organized a successful Mock Interview Day for high school students and several Symantec employees drew on their experience in the professional world to mentor students on the do’s and don’ts for that important initial first step to getting a job – interviewing. Both of the fun-filled events allowed Symantec employees to play on their strengths while also giving back.

Naomi House ‘Store Wars’ Challenge

Over the past three years, Naomi House has held a charity competition to raise money for their work. Naomi House and Jacksplace are hospices in the UK that care for almost 300 children and young adults that face life-limiting or life-threatening conditions.  Any family living in southern central England can use Naomi House free of charge. They have charity shops throughout the UK where the proceeds help support the hospices. Each year, the Store Wars competition challenges corporate teams to take over one of the shops for the day and to raise the most money. The teams are scored both on their shop revenue and outside fundraising. Over the course of the day, the teams must lure people into the store to buy items and they’re encouraged to be as ingenious as possible to bring in revenue to the shop. On July 10th, the day of the challenge, twelve Symantec employees from the Green Park office took over the Basingstoke Naomi House store for the full day. It was one of the hottest days of the summer. There are a few essential ingredients for a traditional British summer: Wimbledon, a pitcher of Pimm’s, and a Wimbledon favorite – strawberries and cream (British tennis fans have been enjoying strawberries with cream ever since Wimbledon began in the 1800s). Wimbledon had just wrapped up the Sunday before and the team played off of the summertime favorite by setting up a table of free strawberries and cream to draw people into the store.

The strawberries and cream worked. The team raised £1,927.61 via the Just Giving Page with an additional £438.15 for Gift Aid totaling £2,365.76. They also raised over £1,000 in the Basingstoke Naomi House store! Cheers to the Symantec volunteers and all their hard work!

Congratulations to the Symantec volunteers in raising much needed funds for Naomi House!

Mock Interviews at Piggot School

Business in the Community (BITC), a UK business-led charity, engages businesses in corporate social responsibility by organizing programs and events to support the community and to create a fairer and more sustainable future. Symantec has worked with BITC on various employee volunteering events in the UK including the Seeing is Believing event in Ireland and in delivering online safety classes to students.

Over three days in mid-July, during the final week of the summer term, twenty-eight Symantec employees joined other corporate volunteers and led mock interviews with 150 students. The three days entailed one-on-one interviews, group workshops, CV reviews, and feedback on performance, techniques, and dress code. For many of the students, it was their first interview experience. Each student received written feedback to help them in future job applications. The event was a two-way learning experience. The students had a chance to receive constructive feedback on the interview process and the volunteers had the opportunity to practice interviewing. 

Symantec employees, Jimmy Bhathena to the left and Cheryl Christie to the right, interviewing students.

Symantec will be expanding our volunteer efforts with schools in the UK. We already have events in the works – we will be joining forces with a local secondary school on mentoring and a primary school on reading, as well as continuing with the internet safety workshops.

Symantec’s Michael Wong in his one-on-one interview.

Take 5!

This Quarter, we’re encouraging each employee to ‘Take 5’ – volunteer five hours of their time to a charity or cause of their choice. We believe that volunteering is a wonderful way to give back and also helps build happier, more connected employees.

For more information on Symantec’s corporate social responsibility opportunities in the UK, or to get involved, email UK_Charity_Committee@symantec.com.

Our FY15 Corporate Responsibility Report is out! Read it and take the stakeholder feedback survey to vote for a charity that will get a $10,000 grant from Symantec!

As Microsoft continues with their aggressive proliferation of Office 365, we need to have a good grasp of what we are up against.  I will have a series of emails that will explore the many FUD that is propagated by Microsoft, the actual facts that dispels the FUD, and how Enterprise Vault.cloud features/functions make it “better” for our customers.

FUD #1: Large or unlimited mailboxes is better

Storage Management was a necessity with an on-premise Exchange server.  But Microsoft is touting how nice it would be to give end-users large mailboxes where the infrastructure is no longer administered by customer.  The amount of mailbox storage available is determined by the mailbox type and the user’s subscription license. Currently, Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium, and Office 365 Enterprise E1 plans provide the user with 50 GBs of total storage, which they can apportion across their primary mailbox and In-Place Archive.  As such, the size of their In-Place Archive can’t exceed 50 GB.  The more expensive Office 365 Enterprise E3 and Office 365 Enterprise E4 plans provide the user with 50 GBs of storage in the primary mailbox, plus unlimited storage in the In-Place Archive.  Saying the archive is unlimited isn’t quite true. As an official matter, there is no size limit, but as a practical matter, the archive is soft- limited to 100 GB.  If a user reaches this quota, a call to Office 365 support is required to ask for a quota increase.  Administrators can’t increase or decrease this soft limit.

Also, Microsoft will say users will have a much better experience because all their messages will be available without any shortcuts, stubs, or the need to go to another interface.  But the fact is a large Outlook OST file is a nightmare to use.  If anyone ever attempted to perform a search (or even browse through a large Outlook mailbox, where all the messages are cached [OST]), they will immediately notice the lag in performance.  Furthermore, Outlook search will not search through attachments or even the attachment filename.  End users will likely want to use form-based search functionality in Outlook or OWA to find messages in their In-Place Archives.  However, when searching the entire mailbox in Outlook 2013, Outlook 2010, and OWA, search results include the users' primary mailbox and In-Place Archive.  But with Outlook 2007, the user must perform separate searches for items in the primary mailbox and items in the In-Place Archive.  Outlook 2007 users must have the Office 2007 Cumulative Update for February 2011 to access the In-Place Archive. Outlook 2011 for Mac and previous versions of the Mac client do not include support for accessing the In-Place Archive.  To work around this, end users can use OWA.  Slow search, incomplete search, and Outlook specific version features does not sound like the end-user is getting a better experience.

Enterprise Vault.cloud allows end-users to search not just the email message, but the attachment file name as well as the actual text of the attachment.  With the ability of faceted search results in Enterprise Vault Personal.cloud, end-users can quickly locate information using an intuitive interface and in an expeditious manner.  Furthermore, end-users can search for non-Office 365 content if the data has been archived within the Enterprise Vault.cloud repository; these data includes: Salesforce Chatter, Instant Messages (ie, Jabber, etc.), files from a Box.com Enterprise Account, etc.  Whether the users are accessing their archive within Outlook or a web-browser, it is the same interface regardless of the Outlook client version or the browser.

Stay tune for Office 365 FUD #2.

•    VMware vSphere Support
•    MS Hyper-V Intelligent Policies including SCVMM Plug-In
•    MS SQL Server Intelligent Policies
•    Significantly Improved Amazon S3 performance
•    NetApp cDOT Support for NDMP and Replication Director
•    Enhanced Security and Auditing

Top Five Keys of Information Security Incident Response are:

1. Virus or Malicious Code Outbreak
2. Physical Incident or Data Loss
3. Network Base Deniel of Service
4. Information Data Breach
5. Insider Attack

Lets discuss these in detail : - Your comments and descriptions, explaining above mentioned topics are most welcome.

As software defined data centers grow more complex, security becomes more important – and tougher to implement. Symantec Data Center Security 6.6, which is being announced at VMWorld and will be generally available in Fall 2015, supports the speed of business by delivering dynamically adaptive and agile security for the data center.

Always-on antimalware and threat protection are critical for virtual data centers but implementing it properly – so production applications aren’t negatively affected – is paramount.  Two common issues can occur when implementing agent-based security for virtual data environments:

• Installing an agent on every VM taxes network resources causing application and network degradation. Agent-based security also isn’t scalable as the number of VMs grows. VMs can be easily self-provisioned by non-IT employees, which often leaves them unsecured. If the new VMs aren’t quickly protected by a security solution, they can be vulnerable to threats.
   

What’s the solution?  Symantec Data Center Security 6.6’s agentless threat protection, which eliminates resource constraints and maximizes VM performance while avoiding negative impact on network and storage I/O. Organizations using VMware ESX on vShield/vCNS and that are starting to implement NSX, will want to look at Data Center Security 6.6, because it supports:

• Comprehensive antimalware for layers 4-7 in a single solution including new support for agentless antimalware for vShield/vCNS and NSX environments. 
• Complete threat protection with agentless network IPS and integration with Symantec DeepSight Intelligence, a file reputation service.
• Dynamic application-centric security and server hardening with Operations Director.

Symantec Data Center Security 6.6 includes support for agentless threat protection with insight reputation that’s optimized for virtual data centers. It’s fully integrated with VMware vShield Manager (and does not require NSX) while utilizing Symantec’s best-in-class antivirus and insight reputation.  

Data Center Security uses a hypervisor-based Security Virtual Appliance to protect all VMs on a single hosted machine, which eliminates the dreaded AV storm problem. The appliance is fully integrated with VMware NSX for low OpEx and always-on, anywhere protection.

Agentless threat protection with Data Center Security 6.6 includes:

• Automation and orchestration for both VMware NSX and VMware vCNS/vShield.  Customers will have the option to enable always-on antimalware by using only vShield.
• Agentless network IPS with VMware NSX. 
• Integration with Symantec Deepsight Intelligence’s real-time global threat information and analytics.
• Auto-deployment of Security Virtual Appliances delivers always-on security to mitigate threats from unsecure, rogue IT.

Today’s threat landscape is more sophisticated than ever.  Protect your VMs without impacting performance or resources with Symantec Data Center Security 6.6’s agentless threat protection.

Come visit us at VMWorld booth #713 and see Data Center Security in action.