Support for Exchange 2010 with Symantec Enterprise Vault™ - coming!

Is there a method to get EV 8 working with Exchange 2010 even in a limited use mode? We are proceeding with a migration to Exchange 2010 regardless of e-Vault and would like archiving working as soon as possible.

Hi,

I'm afraid not. Exchange 2010 support will come with Enterprise Vault 9.0 and not before. Version 8.0 or below will not support Exchange 2010 due to the amount of work we've put into 9.0 to support this version of Exchange. Also be aware that moving users to Exchange 2010 right now will result in those users becoming unsupported from an Enterprise Vault perspective.

Technically I expect that some end user actions will continue to work (with cavaets around archive permissions if users have new SIDs post migration) such as open, reply and forward to an archived item shortcut however there will be a host of actions that simply will not work because Exchange 2010 is an unsupported target and a connection between Enterprise Vault and Exchange will not be possible. Therefore be very careful about how and when these users are migrated and make sure you understand the implications of doing this.

Cheers,
Alex.

Due to the amount of work we've done behind supporting Exchange 2010, Enterprise Vault 8.0 will not be supported with that version of Exchange at all. As in the post above Enterprise Vault 9.0 wil be the earliest version that offers support.
Therefore we won't be doing any testing around that combination.

Emintzer, why don't you look at the native archiving support built into Exchange 2010?  If you're not going to use Legal Discovery this may be a more efficient and cost effective solution for you and others.  In SP1 of 2010 you will be able to store archived items on cheaper storage...

While its true that Exchange Server 2010 does offer a modicum of archiving functionality there are many differences between what Exchange offers natively and what Enterprise Vault can offer as a market leading solution, complimentary technology. Even with the changes in Sp1, there are still many areas where Enterprise Vault can offer value in an EX2010 implementation. Some of these areas include single instance storage, compression (of attachments), freedom of storage choice, storage tiering, offline access to archived data and dedicated EDiscovery and compliance tools. This all points towards using Exchange as a messaging infrastructure and Enterprise Vault where it makes sense... as the long term repository for older mailbox or current Journal data.

As you Said:
 "Even with the changes in Sp1, there are still many areas where Enterprise Vault can offer value in an EX2010 implementation. Some of these areas include single instance storage, compression (of attachments), freedom of storage choice, storage tiering, offline access to archived data and dedicated EDiscovery and compliance tools"

But.  In SP1 you are able to use CHEAP storage.  Where is the cost benefit of installing EV?  The infrastructure required to get EV up and running versus cheap storage.  What is the better option for a small company???

To respond to Emintzer first, while it is true that Enterprise Vault will not support Exchange 2010 until May I'd be interested to hear your timescales behind implementation of Exchange 2010. Is this something you'll be doing very soon? If so then you may want to consider becoming part of our beta program to at least see how Enterprise Vault can help in your Exchange environment.
Remember that Exchange 2010 archiving requires either Outlook 2010 or OWA access in order to see its archive. Previous versions do not have the ability to see the archive (although this is something on the Exchange roadmap). Therefore Exchange doesn't have much of a solution as regards archiving until Outlook 2010 is released.
If you are a smaller organisation and you think that Enterprise Vault may be overkill for you then we'd love to have a conversation with you to determine what your criteria are as I'm sure we can find a solution to fit.

In response to the final comment (above) and without getting into the weeds too much cheap storage is not the panacea for Exchange server. Cheaper storage (even with Sp1 and the abliity to seperate database storage for mailbox and archive) simple translates as Exchange databases can now be hosted on lower rated disk because less IOPS are required for the application. Whether you choose to implement cheaper/less reliable storage is another conversation. Enterprise Vault still offers the value of single instance storage, compression of attachments, total freedom of choice as regards storage (think dedup storage,CAS, WORM, Tape) and offline access to archived data, none of which can be offered natively with Exchange alone. So while Exchange 2010 is undoubtably a fantastic release in lots of areas, products like Enterprise Vault can still offer substantial value.
Small companies who deem Enterprise Vault too expensive, or simply can't see ROI can consider other options. For example, Backup Exec 2010 (due Feburary this year) will have a new archiving capability (which will be powered by the Enterprise Vault engine) which will allow basic storage optimisation of Exchange Mailboxes and Windows File servers and a small subset of the capabilities of the full version of Enterprise Vault. If needs grow over time then this can be upgraded to the full feature version of Enterprise Vault to gain all of the other benefits that the full product brings.

If you use the ' native archiving of ms in 2010'  consider the following compared to Enterprise Vault 9.0

1 - the so-called archive is still a mailbox in a mailbox store. What happens to your ' archive'  if exchange is down?
2 - can you place a copy of your ' archive' on your laptop, and search archived mails while not connected to your corporate network (VaultCache can)
3 - Will ' the archive'  save money concerning exchange? no, because you need at least double the space the ' live'  mailboxes have.
4 - Can you do legal discovery in the MS-archives? no you cannot
5 - Does exchange2010 have single instance storage? No it does not. (ev does! think of a mail being sent to 10 users with a 3 mb attachment = 30 mb... in EV that would be 3mb + a little, + pointers to the actual file for the others)

If you have a small environment, and are willing to put up with the disadvantages of Ex2010 archiving, go for it. If you want a decent archiving product, saving you space on your exchange servers, and robust, reliable and fast, go for Enterprise Vault 9.0

And, as Alex Brown statess, contact Symantec to participate in the beta. That will definitly show you the advantages of EV90 compared to Exch2010 archiving.

In either way, good luck with the move!

And also bare in mind that only RTM of Exchange is released and built-in archiving is realy poor... Even you can not have Outlook 2010 in cached mode if you want to use and access archive.

We too are moving from Lotus Notes to Exchange 2010. We will be well into our deployment by the time EV v9 is available. We plan to only use the journaling fuction of EV when it is available. Is there anything that will be able to capture all the emails that come in and are generated before EV v9 is available so that they can be moved into EV v9 when installed?

 @grdaugherty - that's a great question. The adoption of Exchange 2010, even before Service Pack 1 has been interestingly rapid and out of sync with historical trends of pre-SP1 production deployments of Exchange Server and other things. I'll see what might be possible and come back to you. 

Nick Wade
Group Product Manager, Enterprise Vault Accelerators
Symantec Corporation

If the Ev 9.0 cannot release in time in May 2010 cannot release in time for Exchange 2010, what is the solution? please help to update?

Solution is to wait.... wait... wait.....    and wait....   ;)

Are they building in a feature in 9.0 to migrate data from the Exchange "Archive"?  Or at least some method...  I'm sure hoping they are going to build in some method of grabbing data from the "Archive" and sucking it into EV, to take care of people who go down the MS route and realize that storage is through the roof...

In regards to point #4 of GertjanA, you can do a legal discovery in E2010, and even put holds on as well.  I'm not suggesting going down the road of MS "Archiving", and yes I keep putting it in quotes as I don't see it as Archiving, it's Data Retention and Discovery but nothing more.  IF the rumor is true that with SP1 they'll be severing the archive mailbox from the Exchange mailbox, I might bring myself to call it Archiving, but definately agreed, even with cheaper storage, you would be consuming a buttload of storage, and can't even think about Journalling...  Even small companies with 120 users get over 10-15 GB of email a month, and that's with a 10Mb message size limit and fully functional antispam....

I didn't see any reference to how I might sign up for the ev 9.0 beta program.  

How would I sign up for it?

Thanks much
Frank

Attention:  Please note that Enterprise Vault 9.0 Beta and First Availability registration is now closed.

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To sign up for the Enterprise Vault 9.0 beta program please send the following details to this email address: (Link removed as registration is closed)

Interesting comments all along...

What I have been told by a microsoft person on a tech-ed meeting that ' legal discovery'  in Exchange 2010 will not hold in a US -court
What the reason is I do  not know.
EV DA will.

As for ' wait' .... Exchange2010 has so many new features (DAG, database failover etc), that I am not surprised it is taking Symantec a little too make sure EV9 will live up to the expectation. I for one (although running on Exchange2007 almost) cannot wait to see it. But, I'll have to wait.

I'd prefere having a good EV9 RTM than one that needs hotfixes, patching, and causes headaches because it was delivered too soon.

As for new users, move to 2010, and be happily surprised when you implement EV9 ;-))

Has there been any updates to the time frame for both beta and GA? My company is already on the beta list but I have not heard anything.

Thanks

How do we apply for "First Availability program"?

Attention:  Please note that Enterprise Vault 9.0 Beta and First Availability registration is now closed.

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Just to make sure we capture all the right information for the beta sign up process can you please ensure you provide all the following info when asking to join the beta programme

1. Full Company Name (not abbreviations please)
2. Complete Address (street/city/state/country etc)
3. Symantec Account Rep / SE (If known)
4. Current version of EV
5. Current version of Exchange
6. How many EV Users
7. Contact Name & job title
8. Contact Phone Numbers
9. E-mail Address
10. Backup contact if available

To request beta participation please email this info to ( Link removed as registration is closed)

Many Thanks
Glenn

I have two questions,  I can't seem to find an answer on these:
1- Is the release schedule for EV9.0 still the second half of 2010?
2- Apart from the support of Exchange 2010 SP1, is there already a list of the features, enhancements and solved bugs of v9.0? Some release notes?

Thanks again!

Olaf

Another side question...  I have Exchange 2003 and am implimenting EV8. I will eventually upgrading to Exchange 2010 and then eventually to EV9 sometime after that. Are there any red flags in moving down this path as far as issues with database conversions or what not?

Thanks,

Larry

just to add my two cents here, the thing with Exchange 2010 archiving is for users to access it, you need Outlook 2010 also, so you have the extra cost of having to upgrade your clients there, plus you need ECALs to enable the feature which can introduce additional costs, coupled with the fact that you have to have a live connection to Exchange (no offline equivalent)  and no SIS...it's not really a viable alternative to EV at all.

Bear in mind, you'll have to upgrade to EV 9.0 before you can move any EV mailboxes over to Exchange 2010, and it'll be E2010 SP1, which you're gonna wanna have anyway.  I've been running into a few E2010 issues where the rollups are very necessary.

Outlook 2007 is supposed to get support for the E2010 Archive Mailbox, around the time of E2010 SP1's release, which will probably be some sort of patch to Outlook I'm sure.  Still won't have offline access of course.

Hi All,
I would like to know posibility to use the EV 9.0 addons with EV 6.0 Outlook 2010 versions. It will be great if you can nform me on that issue

Thanks

Kind Regards,

EV usually supports having Client & Server one version behind.
So, EV9 Server & EV8 client would be supported.
EV8 Server and EV9 client would be supported.
EV6 Server and EV9 client will not be supported.
EV9 client and EV6 Server will not be supported.

And keep in mind that Oulook 2010 will NOT be supported by the EV9 client initially.
(See comment from Alex Brown, here: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/outlook-2010)

Quote:

While Outlook 2010 has gone RTM, Enterprise Vault support will be provided in an upcoming release (but not EV 9.0 original release) later in the year.
As noted, it does take some time to provide support for a major release such as this including in this particular case a full port of the EV client to use the newer OOM (Outlook Object Model) and full QA testing of the solution. Therefore at the moment I don't have dates to communicate to you however you should expect to hear more information from us a litle later in the year.

Today it's 25th of May, what is the update on EV9. I am just waiting for the product so that I can rollout E2K10.
Does Ev7.5 client will work with EV 9?

What if Jan 1st 2011?

We have Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010 installed but most of our users are still on Exchange 2010 because we are waiting for the eVault upgrade.  However,  now our 2003 users cannot access the vault either.  Has anyone else had this issue?

Is it possible that the EV System Mailbox(es) and/or EV Service account got moved over to the E2010 servers?

We currently run Evault 8.2.1693 with Exchange 2003. It is a newer install and is not used for archiving currently, we only using it to journal email.  We are looking to move to Exchange 2010. From what I understand in this thread, Symantec does not support Evault 8 with Exchange 2010. I read it might work, it might not, but basically Symantec won’t support you if you move a mailbox to an Exchange 2010 server using Evault 8 and we should wait for Evault 9. Is that accurate?
 
Now, our plan to move to Ex 2010 is to add Ex 2010 servers to the existing Organization and then move mailboxes to the new servers, standard MS stuff. The real questions I have:
 

1. If I am only journaling, aside from a lack of Symantec support, would Evaul continue to function (Journal) if I moved users to Exchange 2010? Is the issue really about archiving 2010 mailboxes or is journaling directly affected by the upgrade to Exchange 2010?
2. Would I still be supported and would Evault function correctly if I simply added the 2010 servers to the organization but moved nothing until 9 is released?

 
Any advice would be appreciated.
 

Thanks for the response, I will wait for the technote though I do have a question. I intend to bypass Ex2007 altogether and go from 2003 ot 2010. Thus my mixed environment will be 2003/2010 not 2007/2010. Will this configuration be supported? Will this technote address that or is there one that does? Thanks again.

Attention:  Please note that Enterprise Vault 9.0 Beta and First Availability registration is now closed.

I never knew it was open. Any chance I could still register for First Availability registration? We have had to put out Exchange upgrade on hold due to waiting for Evault 9.

Hi All,
I've been watching this post for a while now.  Today is August 2nd and the first month of Q3 2010 is gone.  Is there any update on when the RTM version of EV9 will be released?

Still same info "Enterprise Vault 9.0 GA is planned for Q3 CY10.

I received a partner communication with 30th August as the date for EV 9.0 General Availability.

We have a need to move data from EV to Exchange - backwards I know.  Is there any way to move data out of EV into EX2010 and maintain the retention metadata (even if temporary)?

Hello there,

We are currently on EV8 SP4 wit Exchange 2007 SP3.

What we benefit from upgrading to EV9. We have no plans to upgrade to Exchange 2010 yet.

We are also planning to introduce EV Discovery Accelerator. Can we use EV8 with a different version of EV DA such us ver 9 and does DA has to be the same version as EV version.

Many Thanks

All these subsequent upgrades that have to happen for any one change really can make your head spin. You guys provided some great commentary though.

Hello All,

We are using EV 8.0 SP4 in Exchange 2007 SP3 with Outlook 2003/2010. For Outlook 2010 we have installed EV client ver 9.0.

I have two questions:

1) In Outlook 2010 when we try to use Search Vaults for searching. We can only open one item from the reuturned list. Once we close this open item the screen of the integrated search within Outlook pane cleared and is completley white. We have to go back to Inbox and click Search Vaults again and search again. We do not see this issue with Outlook 2003 and EV client 8.0.

2) Is it possible to integrate Windows Desktop Search with EV search. We have not enabled Vault cache and the WDS Search auto-enable is off.

Regards,