Q&A

Cloud Q&A: Symantec Takes Archiving to the Cloud

Doug Barney talks to Symantec's senior manager of product marketing Amy Dugdale on making the move to the cloud with one of its key products.

• By Doug Barney
• 10/02/2012

In a series of interviews, Doug Barney talks to companies who have repurposed their product lines to meet customers' moves to the cloud. Symantec's senior manager of product marketing, Amy Dugdale, is up first, explaining what makes Enterprise Vault.cloud different from the on-premise version.

Doug Barney, Virtualization Review: What tool would you like to highlight?
Amy Dugdale, Symantec: Enterprise Vault.cloud is a cloud-based archiving solution that helps companies meet mailbox management, compliance and legal/eDiscovery challenges as they relate to information management.

How different or similar is it to the on-premises tool?
It is quite similar. For Symantec archiving solutions, the single biggest differentiator is the delivery model -- in the cloud or on premise, whichever best meets our customers' needs. In some instances, our customers opt for a hybrid model where they archive some of their information (e.g., e-mail) in the cloud and then choose to archive other information (e.g., file servers) on premise.

What did it take to make the move to the cloud?
We still offer Enterprise Vault to meet our customers' on-premise archiving needs. Similar to my comment above -- our customers have a variety of archiving needs and some of them are met in the cloud, others on premise. It really comes down to what best meets the customer's requirements.

What has been the customer reaction?
In speaking with customers, my perspective is that they are happy to have choices when it comes to how they meet their archiving goals -- whether they do it on-premise, in the cloud or take a hybrid approach. Ultimately, they appreciate the flexibility that Symantec offers them.

What are the economic advantages?
It's going to be different for each company based on their overall objectives. If they are looking for a predictable cost structure with per user/per month pricing, unlimited storage and retention and automatic maintenance/upgrades, then Enterprise Vault.cloud is a great way to go. If they already have full-time IT staff that can manage the archive on-premise, then they may prefer to use Enterprise Vault. It all boils down to what is best for the customer given their requirements and environment.

Based on this experience, are you doing more cloud work?
Symantec offers a number of solutions delivered via the cloud. You can view them here.

What is the best compliment you've heard from customers?
I attend several industry tradeshows each year, including Microsoft TechEd, and one of the best parts of my job is having our customers walk up to me at the show and tell me how much they love Enterprise Vault.cloud. They often talk about how it has helped to simplify their work lives by getting .PST files under control and helping to meet their corporate legal and compliance requirements.