Digital Collaboration Guide, a SharePoint Architect's view

The explosion of SharePoint has enabled thousands of companies to organize their data through collaboration, document management, portals, workspaces, etc. With the power and breadth of SharePoint it has quickly allowed organizations and people to produce unstructured content given the accessibility of portals and compute anywhere. This has lead to hundred of thousands of files, emails, instant messages floating around the organization.

Given this scenario, organizations are finding ways to organize their data and according to a survey conducted by Symantec last month, both storage and discovery (searches) savings are on top of their list of to dos. According to Francis deSouza, senior vice president, Information Risk Management, Symantec:

We’re seeing a large percentage of Fortune 100 companies adopt Enterprise Vault recognizing that an intelligent archive is the best place to secure and manage unstructured information. In the same way that databases have become the home for structured information, Enterprise Vault gives companies of all sizes a primary storage tier for unstructured information and confidence in their approach.

The current version of Symantec Enterprise Vault is 8.0 and according to customer experience testimonials:

Mark Olsen who is the director of controls and compliance for Mitel has this to say:

With Enterprise Vault 8.0, we’re able to consolidate email and other electronic information into a single repository and reduce information redundancy. We have moved thousands of PST files off employees’ desktops and laptops into the archive, resulting in a 35 percent savings in storage costs. In addition, Enterprise Vault and the Discovery Accelerator have saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars, which we would have previously spent performing strategic searches for all legal matters.

The power of Symantec Enterprise Vault in helping organize unstructured information in an organization is impressive. The list of agents and options in SEV 8.0 tells the power of this technology.

Agents and Options

Automated Classification Engine
Compliance Accelerator
Content Management Connector for EMC Documentum Retention Policy Services
Content Management Connector for IBM Records Manager for DB2
Content Management Connector for Open Text LiveLink
Discovery Accelerator
File System Archiving
Instant Messenger Archiving
Microsoft Exchange PST Migrator
Microsoft Exchange Public Folder Archiving
Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino Mailbox Archiving
Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Domino Journaling
User Classification Engine

Features (as published by Symantec)

Policy-based archiving. Move less-frequently used unstructured information from high-cost disk and archive to lower cost storage while maintaining accessibility.

PST/NSF Migration. PST/NSF migration archives unmanaged personal email messages and attachments, enabling IT to effectively eradicate the use of personal store files and regain control of the information within those files.

Electronic Discovery and Search with Guided Review. Through roles-based access searches can be conducted and results reviewed and navigated based on clustering of data retained within the archive. Results can be marked and tagged by reviewers or according to rules.

Granular Legal Hold. Automatically suspend the deletion of archived data in response to internal investigation, litigation or regulatory request.

Automates the migration, storage and retention of unstructured information in accordance with IT policies while improving performance, reducing costs and simplifying management.

Reduces storage, backup and help desk costs, while controlling data loss and ensuring all email remains protected and in compliance with corporate policies.

Proactive archiving reduces the costs associated with search and collection of electronic data by creating a centralized and indexed archive that can be searched on demand.

Legal Hold prevents destruction of email, IM, Files or SharePoint documents by preserving data related to an individual or groups of users as part of a case.

New Features for Enterprise Vault 8.0 (as published by Symantec)

Optimized Single-Instance Storage

Optimized Single – Instance Storage (OSIS) reduces the archive footprint for better total cost of ownership. OSIS allows the archive to share commonly repeated data between archived items like email, SharePoint documents, file system documents, reducing the footprint down to only one copy in the archive regardless of source.

Integration with de-duplication technology enables the combination of backup and archive data to further reduce the archive and backup data footprint. A broad range of technology partners and supported platforms gives customers freedom of choice and flexible archive deployment options.

Intelligent archiving enables selective retention of critical vs. non-critical information, reducing the costs associated with search and collection of electronic data.

Next Generation End User Experience

Allows transparent access to archived items from familiar interfaces like Outlook, Notes, or Windows Explorer meaning there is no separation between live and archived information.

Access via Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices allows users on the go to search** and access to archived information anytime anywhere.

Access to information stored in PST and NSF files via Outlook Web Access and Domino Web Access.

Simplified e-Discovery with Guided Review for distributed teams that require centralized access.

Simplified Deployment, Administration and Management

New installation process and setup provides recommendations and default settings based on industry best practices to get Enterprise Vault up and running in minutes.

Common Tasks dashboard makes day-to-day administration simple by providing quick access to common tasks and operations within Enterprise Vault.

Enhanced policies for flexibility allow users to “re-file” archived messages for new retention requirements.

Discovery Accelerator with Guided Review

Helps users explore search results by prioritizing or clustering the results to perform better early case assessments and understand both the higher level view and specific details.

Guided Review reduces the time and cost of reviewing search results by providing multiple views and facets for a given search.

Reduces costs of legal discovery with powerful end-user, legal and administrator search capabilities.

Symantec Enterprise Vault 8.0 is scheduled to be available in early 2009 directly from Symantec or through Symantec’s worldwide network of value-added authorized resellers, distributors and systems integrators. For updates on new features related to Enterprise Vault 8.0, please check with your Symantec representative.

Note: Mobile Search support available as beta release as of October 2008. Check with your Symantec representative for release status of this feature within Enterprise Vault 8.0.

Whitepapers

You can go ahead and download whitepapers published by Symantec.

Key Takeaway

Given the magnitude of resources required to maintain unstructured data; not to mention the long term harmful effects of maintaining this chaos, Symantec Enterprise Vault provides a secure, confident, cost effective, and smart choice for IT decision makers.

See the product here.