Upgrading EV/Training Courses.

[PATRICK_Kitchen]

Good Morning All,

Wondered if you could help me, currently:-

EV6SP2 one vault server, two Exchange 2003 backend servers one OWA front end server inside the DMZ with an SSL appliance for external access.

We are keen to upgrade our system to a later version of EV maybe EV7SP1 or later or even EV 2007 - anyone any experince of both products if so which is best ?  May we would like to upgrade to Exchange 2007 later in the year.

My question is do Symatec run any training courses in the UK regarding the upgrading of the systems ?

My management team is keen for this to be done inhouse, however, we had the upgrade from EV5 to EV6 done by a Symantec Engineer as we has a day spare from the initial install which was performed by the then Veritas.

There were a number of problems which occured with this upgrade especially around the OWA access to archived items that took weeks to sort out with technical support.

Top and bottom I really do not feel that confident in doing it myself without a little hand holding, so any help advise or information regarding training courses would be available.

Obviously we would do this in test under a VM enviroment before we did it for live, experince has told me though just because it works in test does not mean to say the same beheviour will be experience in the live upgrade :)

[The_Genie]

Hello Patrick,

With regards EV 7SP1 and Ev2007, if I was you I would go to Ev7 SP1 first.  You would have to I beleive anyway of you were to upgrade to 2007. I believe 2007 is not released until tomorrow anyway so no one has used it in a live environment I believe, so I would personnaly wait for a few months in case any issues arise that can be ironed out.  Let others have any problem :~)!!!

As far as training course go I am not so sure there are anything specific for upgrading... I would check with your Symantec account manager.  Perhaps they can arrange something to assist you.

OWA is always tricky, but the good news is I think 2007 (though as I said I would wait a bit) is alot better for this.  I think that even if you were to upgrade you EV server you could perhaps consider leaving the Exchange servers upgrade as these will still work I believe and be supported as EV is usually is one version forward and one back for compatibility. 

I believe though support will not out rightly assist you ( that would be consultancy) with an upgrade if you have issues you can log a call (if you have a support contract. However sometimes you cannot beat having an external consultant onsite, though I appreciate you may have had a unfortunate experience in the past.  In my expereince the SYMC consultants are still the best, having used third party people in the past .  I would stick with them if it was my upgrade honest.