Symantec Corp. has announced Symantec Enterprise Vault 10, Enterprise Vault.cloud, and Cloud Storage for Enterprise Vault to enable organizations to manage and discover their information faster and with greater efficiency and scale, both on-premise and in the cloud. Symantec Enterprise Vault 10 software will add new integration with Symantec's data loss prevention and encryption technologies to archive and discover organizations' information without compromising confidential information, in addition to allowing organizations to discover data stored in the cloud and from social networks. Symantec's software-as-a-service-based Enterprise Vault.cloud will offer unlimited cloud storage for email, with rapid search and access, for a flat fee per mailbox per month.
A key new feature of Enterprise Vault 10 is the Data Classification Service (DCS). This new feature leverages Symantec's data loss prevention technology to analyze email content and metadata to automatically classify the email and assign the appropriate archiving and retention policy for that message or even flag the message to be reviewed for compliance reasons. Classifications can also be used as filters to speed up the search and review process for eDiscovery. Additionally, customers who have implemented Symantec Data Loss Prevention can share classification policies to greatly simplify the automated classification of information. Enterprise Vault also adds new integration with Symantec's encryption technologies to allow organizations to effectively classify, store, and discover encrypted information.
And, because posts to an organization's publicly-facing social media outlets including blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are considered business communications that must be preserved according to the same industry-specific regulations governing the retention and discovery of emails, instant messages and other electronic records, through new partnerships with CommonDesk, FaceTime, Hanzo and Socialware, Enterprise Vault 10 automatically archives social media interactions for compliance, eDiscovery or corporate governance purposes. Organizations can comply with requirements for social media communications without restricting or banning the use of those tools.
"Being able to capture social information is critical for organizations required to comply with open records requests, supervision requirements under the FINRA 10-06 amendments and any legal requests that may come. According to the new FINRA recommendations, every firm that intends to communicate, or permit its associated persons to communicate, through social media sites must first ensure that it can retain records of those communications as required by Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and NASD Rule 3110. SEC and FINRA rules require that for record retention purposes, the content of the communication is determinative and a broker-dealer must retain those electronic communications that relate to its 'business as such,' " Danny Milrad, senior manager, product marketing, Symantec, tells 5 Minute Briefing.
"Businesses around the world know how important it is to protect and preserve email, IM and documents, spreadsheets and other unstructured information; these same business must also evolve to recognize that social media information is equally important," says Milrad. "With so many users accessing and sharing information on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many others, it's more important than ever for companies to have controls in place to not only secure information from viruses and other risks but to capture and preserve the information for legal and compliance purposes." And, he notes, "The more employees using these outlets, the greater the risk to organizations."
Milrad cites industry estimates that 2013, 50% of all companies will have been asked to produce material from social media websites for e-discovery, and that by the end of 2012, 50% of companies will try to block access to some or all social networking sites. "To help organizations enable social media usage and tip the scales in their favor, Enterprise Vault 10 now has new capabilities in Discovery Accelerator, Discovery Collector and Compliance Accelerator to search, preserve and produce content from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn as well as SharePoint wikis, blogs and lists."
Symantec will continue to enhance its Symantec.cloud email archiving service under the name Symantec Enterprise Vault.cloud. This change will take place beginning in June 2011. The service enables organizations of all sizes to address the challenges of email storage management, legal discovery, and regulatory compliance, with the ease and efficiency of a purely hosted archiving service. With no hardware, software, or plug-ins to install and maintain, this solution offers unlimited email storage and retention in secure enterprise-class data centers for a flat fee per mailbox per month.
Symantec also announced Enterprise Vault Cloud Storage for Nirvanix, a hybrid model designed to make using the cloud for archiving as easy as managing on-premise storage while also lowering costs. The Symantec connector for Enterprise Vault Cloud Storage for Nirvanix optimizes how businesses use the cloud to archive information.
Symantec Enterprise Vault 10 is scheduled to be available worldwide in the second half of the year. More information is available about Enterprise Vault from Symantec.