Is it reasonable to install EV 7 without professional assistance?

[Larry_Arndt]

We're very interested in deploying EV 7 -- the Exchange and File System Archiving components.  Two resellers have told us that Symantec strongly recommends professional installation and configuration of EV.  The resellers are each charging over $12,000 for this service, however, and that money could be very useful in procuring new hardware.  Our environment consists of 2 Exchange 2003 servers (one is a front-end server), Outlook XP, 350 mailboxes, and 6 file servers (a mix of 2000 Server and Server 2003).  Does anyone have any installation and configuration experience that might help us decide whether or not to go it alone?  Thanks.

[Formstone]

If you don't have a VAR do it, I highly suggest taking the class.  I just took it last week, it was for version 7 and we are running 6,  I am now looking to upgrade without the VAR.  I do plan on extensive testing and running the upgrade on images of our production environment in VM first.

The class was nice and the labs and books are worth having about as a reference IMHO.  It let me get my arms around the product and get a good handle on how to plan and redeploy it in my environment.

Scott

[Eu-Tjin_Gan]

if you ever do this yourself, personally, i strongly suggest to read the whole install guide - do not skip anything.  otherwise, you will need to prepare to re-do the installation again and again.

the installation has lots of prerequisites and "must-do's".

[Rob_Hanson]

Larry,

As long as you have met the prerequisites thatere should ne no problem installing EV on your own.  If you mess it up, then Tech Support can dig you out of a hole ;) Tips

Get the licenses before you install.

Read the install instructions carefully

Run the Deployment scanner to make sure you have not missed anything (it is on the 7 CD, version 6 SP2 and above you have to download).

Best of luck

Rob

[Larry_Arndt]

Thank you all for your extremely helpful feedback!

[Phisher]

We had the same issue.  I've deployed EV before and it was pretty easy. Now the Sales is telling us it's virtually impossible to install without professional services. We did get EV installed and it's working as expected. Doing it yourself is better since you know how it's configured, where things are, and know the strengths/weakness in the system. If you still are having problems, get Symantec pre-sales a call.  What I did notice is that once the sales is complete, the support from Symantec is gone. They will force you to use their fee-based support team.

The guides are very important.  Some of the information will not make sense and we did notice some minor errors in the documentation that we have forwarded it on to Symantec. BTW, if you are using EMC or NetApps, those storage vendors typically have great implementation guides that can help you out.

I do hope you all get a demo copy and play around with it before your purchase. At least you get a pre-sales engineer to help you out. Our old Sales Rep sold my team a product that was over promised and under delivered (specifically 7.5 features).

Overall, play with it and

[Robert_Primozic]

He he,

you encoured on same problems as I did... Presales support and engineers are good; however free support is so so... SSA (second level support or professional services are excelent).

My expiriences:

-take a training class

-make a perfect picture what do you want to achive

-take care on all details

-get approve from pre-sales team about your design (or leave themn to do it)

-read carefuly about all what EV offers and compare carefully whit your needs/goals

-do installation on your test enviroment (if it is possible on exact replica of your production)

-do a proof of concept

After that installation in production is trivial... But supprises are always around

I works as a EV consultant at my company... my first instalation was a full of problems. Above are my experiences...