Hi, In order to learn more about how our customers use Enterprise Vault and to improve product reliablilty, we are considering a feature whereby summary information about your environment would be sent to Symantec. The data would be anonymous and no details like company names,individuals would be transferred. A lot of it would be summary data, like number of archive tasks, exchange tasks, numbers of archives etc. Perhaps later extended to things like performance metrics, whether the system is 'healthy' etc. We wouldn't expect it to be a large amount of data. Obviously the data would be encrypted in some form, together with some polcies to control it's behavour. For example, there may be additional data you would be happy for it to capture e.g.the event log, so we can identify commonly logged events to try and resolve. Technically speaking I imagine we may try various methods to send the data to symantec e.g. via ftp, http or email and it's something that would happen perhaps once per month. Obvioulsy more and more products are doing this kind of thing and I think this would be a great way for us to help our customers but obviously transferring any 'data' can be a sensitivive topic so want to have a debate on this. Yours, Mike Bilsborough Director, EV Engineering

Mike I think this has its merits but I think that instead of automating it you should give the customer the option of manually running the data gather so they can see it before submitting it because as you said EV does house very sensitive data. On another note to help Support understand customers environments Symantec should have a setup whereby the customer can submit detailed designs and layouts of their environment so when support get a case they have the design details of what they are working on displayed as part of the case. I think if the two were combined you may have a a solution that helps you in your understanding of the customers environment as well as your ability to help the customer better by having the design of their environments

I'm not sure how the size of the environment would really help anything, the errors and warnings i can see being of some use, but i find it hard enough to keep up with the boat load of nightly errors in our environments, it'd be interesting to see how symantec would keep up with thousands and thousands of customers worth!

Hello Mike I think that what you are proposing is an excellent idea. The Deployment Scanner that is installed on each Enterprise Vault Server prior to actual setup is a tool that could be expanded to be run on a scheduled interval. (Obviously with the consent of the customer by selecting to accept this option). The Deployment Scanner can already be run to gather additional information for Support to troubleshoot a problem. This program could be upgraded to gather whatever info you required after an implementation. Since its inception I have been promoting the Deployment Scanner to customers as a useful tool for troubleshoot problems after an implementation and with the proper information provided to customers on its use I am sure that the majority of customers would not mind this program running and sending off vital information to Symantec that could assist Symantec Support and in the long run improve product reliablity. Of course this information gathering would be an option that the customer could accept or decline by not activating it. Judy Glazier

Hello Mike, Remember all the fuzz when people found out Windows was sending out stuff (or alledgely did)? As for my previous job, that would be a nogo. I assume more companies do not want to sent 'stuff' to a software-provider. I agree with Liam, to let the customer decide. Like the 'help us improve (fill in blank, think sql, exchange, office) from MS. Very important will be for major companies (which probably will deliver the more usable info regarding size etc) WHAT is being transferred. Give them a tool they can use to check what data is being transmitted. I know I had to clean logfiles, errors etc before actually posting them here. Deployment Scanner might be an option (have sent a cab-file or two), but you want data from a running environment I guess. Also, Liam's remark on the possibility to get support details on your (customer) environment would be nice. Not only Platinum customers, but also the others. It is possible to store this in Siebel (if you still use that...) Regards

Hi Guys, Thanks for the feedback so far. When I said 'automatic' I just really meant without end user intervention. Obviously I agree on opt in/out. I agree on the deployment scanner idea as well. I kind of envisioned the feature basically being a subset of the deployment scanner but only capturing a subset of the data etc. That also gives you the option to see the contents of the 'CAB' that it created. As you know a lot of entry id's in our databases contain alias that you create. Do you think we need to remove this level of information from the data before it's transferred to Symantec? Further down the line, I like the idea of it sending the data automatically 'when something bad happens' (ie EV frenzy being one example) do you think that's a good idea too? Mike

Discuss: Automatically sending information to Symantec....

17 Replies

Liam_Finn1
Level 6
15 years ago
Mike I think this has its merits but I think that instead of automating it you should give the customer the option of manually running the data gather so they can see it before submitting it because as you said EV does house very sensitive data.

On another note to help Support understand customers environments Symantec should have a setup whereby the customer can submit detailed designs and layouts of their environment so when support get a case they have the design details of what they are working on displayed as part of the case.

I think if the two were combined you may have a a solution that helps you in your understanding of the customers environment as well as your ability to help the customer better by having the design of their environments
JesusWept3
Level 6
15 years ago
I'm not sure how the size of the environment would really help anything, the errors and warnings i can see being of some use, but i find it hard enough to keep up with the boat load of nightly errors in our environments, it'd be interesting to see how symantec would keep up with thousands and thousands of customers worth!
Judy_Glazier
Level 6
15 years ago
Hello Mike

I think that what you are proposing is an excellent idea.

The Deployment Scanner that is installed on each Enterprise Vault Server prior to actual setup is a tool that could be expanded to be run on a scheduled interval. (Obviously with the consent of the customer by selecting to accept this option).

The Deployment Scanner can already be run to gather additional information for Support to troubleshoot a problem. This program could be upgraded to gather whatever info you required after an implementation.

Since its inception I have been promoting the Deployment Scanner to customers as a useful tool for troubleshoot problems after an implementation and with the proper information provided to customers on its use I am sure that the majority of customers would not mind this program running and sending off vital information to Symantec that could assist Symantec Support and in the long run improve product reliablity. Of course this information gathering would be an option that the customer could accept or decline by not activating it.

Judy Glazier
GertjanA
Moderator
15 years ago
Hello Mike,

Remember all the fuzz when people found out Windows was sending out stuff (or alledgely did)?

As for my previous job, that would be a nogo. I assume more companies do not want to sent 'stuff' to a software-provider. I agree with Liam, to let the customer decide. Like the 'help us improve (fill in blank, think sql, exchange, office) from MS.

Very important will be for major companies (which probably will deliver the more usable info regarding size etc) WHAT is being transferred. Give them a tool they can use to check what data is being transmitted. I know I had to clean logfiles, errors etc before actually posting them here. Deployment Scanner might be an option (have sent a cab-file or two), but you want data from a running environment I guess.

Also, Liam's remark on the possibility to get support details on your (customer) environment would be nice. Not only Platinum customers, but also the others. It is possible to store this in Siebel (if you still use that...)

Regards
Michael_Bilsbor
Level 6
15 years ago
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback so far. When I said 'automatic' I just really meant without end user intervention. Obviously I agree on opt in/out. I agree on the deployment scanner idea as well. I kind of envisioned the feature basically being a subset of the deployment scanner but only capturing a subset of the data etc. That also gives you the option to see the contents of the 'CAB' that it created.

As you know a lot of entry id's in our databases contain alias that you create. Do you think we need to remove this level of information from the data before it's transferred to Symantec?

Further down the line, I like the idea of it sending the data automatically 'when something bad happens' (ie EV frenzy being one example) do you think that's a good idea too?

Mike
GertjanA
Moderator
15 years ago
Hello Mike,

Where I worked with EV, it was not allowed to let the outside world know anything from the internal network. Aliasses are like that.
Additionally, the 'autosend when EV blows up' thing will obvioulsy only work when there is a direct and open connection to Internet.

So:

1 - If possible (I am not a programmer!) make the customer have a choice between full or anonymous data
2 - If possible, make the transmission of the data configurable. Allow a customer to configure an smtp-link/sent to mailbox (to be forwarded?), or something.
3 - Perhaps have customer choose what to include or what not? I understand that even in eventlogs you will see machinenames, but you have to allow something.
Judy_Glazier
Level 6
15 years ago
Mike

The idea of automatically sending info when a problem happens is nice, but think support, as well as the customer would disagree. It would be difficult to tell if you were receiving info on a real problem, or something being tested by the customer that results in an error and they just reverse the changes and everything is okay again.

The majority of customers that I have worked with over the last seven or eight years would not have an issue with Symantec having generic information from their EV environment as long as it was to improve customer support and improve the product. They would probably draw the line at allowing any info that would point indirectly or directly to their EV environment. That would probably include problems.

It should be left to the customer to open a support case and then provide the support tech with the necessary info to troubleshoot and solve the current issue.

Still like the idea of gathering info and using a version of the Deployment Scanner though.

Judy Glazier
Liam_Finn1
Level 6
15 years ago
How about adding the ability into EV to open a case. Lets say you get an error. You can use that error info to initiate a case with Symantec from the VAC , it issues a case number so when you call in support have the information already

As part of it it will need to run deployment scanner to gather data and take a dump of the EV event logs and post them to support as part of opening a case.
JesusWept3
Level 6
15 years ago
egads, support is swamped enough as it is without automatically creating cases :)
plus with the amount of errors EV pumps out, you'd be opening 20 cases a day!
MichelZ
Level 6
15 years ago
Yes, alias would need to be stripped. Absolutely no information which could identify a company should be transferred. This includes ip addresses of sending servers. opt in of course, as MS does it. Cheers