why oh why is symantec so prevalent in the corporate world.

[classy]

are there any alternatives?

I have been doing this awhile now, worked in some large domains as well. With all things considered, effectiveness, cost, ease of administration, and support, I think they are in the front to be honest. I have worked with Trend, Enod, and Kapersky as well. Kapersky is expensive. Enod managment was a little sloppy. Trend and Mcafee just weren't good at all, lol. AV has definately fallen behind usefulness to be honest, but still needed. If you are beyond say 50 desktops, Symantec would get my first vote.

Oh and no I am not a paid spokesman, lol

 

[MustISO]

Mostly no competition that the average person knows about. People know Norton AV so they buy the corporate product. The newer versions aren't as bad as the older versions but corporate products as a whole are usually bloated and poorly designed. The problem is usually the people asking for the features don't use the product or have any concept of how it will be used in the field. They make knee jerk decisions and fix the issues after the fact (or never)

 

[holden j caufield]

I loved backup exec 2010. I hate 2013 or whatever the latest version was. It was slow, clunky, and took twice as long to do whatever I wanted it to do. Are you running 2013 and you're happy with it?

I don't know if I loved the previous version but compared to 2012 BE problems I've had. I guess I did love it. Endpoint is probably the biggest waste of bandwidth I've ever seen. I can't believe there are places that have to handle 25k+ computers with that stuff. I'm just hoping people send their money else where because symantec probably has stifled more productivity than anything (atot close 2nd).

 

[shortylickens]

They used to be really good back in the day, but like so many other major companies they've been living off their reputation too long.

 

[Chetan Savade]

Hi,

I am Chetan Savade from Symantec Technical Support team.

Here are a few 3rd-party resources that should help to make the decision.
http://www.symantec.com/content/en/u...ms_17Dec10.pdf

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/u...t_OR.en-us.pdf

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/u...t_OR.en-us.pdf

You can refer these Symantec connect threads as well:
https://www-secure.symantec.com/conn...-kaspersky-ect
https://www-secure.symantec.com/conn...compare-sheets
https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/compare

Regards,
Chetan Savade

 

[mikeymikec]

A few years ago I was helping a customer with a problem, they had a file server with Norton on (which did anti-virus as well as providing updates for the workstations). The server was having stability issues, which disappeared as soon as Norton was uninstalled. Symantec's answer was that they don't support their 'anti-virus for a server' product on a server with a RAID configuration.

*blink*

 

[Demo24]

are there any alternatives?

We use trend, it works quite well and really no complaints. Kind of unusual to say that about av software.:hmm:

 

[walkur]

At work we use the Sophos suite (forced upon us by global HQ).
Our IT department found the solution... they gave us all SSD's.

 

[Wyndru]

This morning I've been fighting with our SEPM server, and every support doc I for the issue I'm having find has different information on it. I keep running in circles.

Oh and I love that bug in v11 and v12 where it creates a temp file in an xfer folder before it quarantines a file, but then it keeps scanning that temp folder and creating new files to quarantine over and over. It's been a known issue for years and they haven't fixed it. The only thing that truly fixes it is uninstalling the client, deleting the xfer folder and reinstalling the client.

Also, when they changed the find unmanaged process in v12, the product became pretty much useless to me. In v11 I used to just find unmanaged computers and push the client out to them, now v12 uses "unmanaged detectors" and it just gives you a list, which you can't do anything with (other than manually typing in each computer name or creating a csv list to deploy to). This product is a mess.

Luckily we already pay for Microsoft Forefront, so once I get some time I'll be pushing that out and we are done renewing symantec.

At work we use the Sophos suite (forced upon us by global HQ).
Our IT department found the solution... they gave us all SSD's.

A friend of mine admins a network with Sophos, he says he loves it. I hear it works correctly with AD and it's simple to monitor, update and deploy clients. Which is all I really care about.

To be honest, in the environments I work in, the viruses are really not a big deal...it's about staying in compliance if there was an audit that is important. These days if there is a virus, we just remotely re-image the computer anyhow, everything is stored on the network drives. I can't remember the last time I actually spent a lot of time troubleshooting a computer with a virus.

 

[CraigRT]

I like backupexec for what it's worth.

Symantec all together can just die as far as AV goes.

Yeah, I had no issues using Backup Exec but it does do some strange things.
Their AV though I agree, trash. Most of them are. We used Trend Micro Office Scan. At least it didn't gibble computers. (seemed low overhead)

 

[rasczak]

I like backupexec for what it's worth.

Symantec all together can just die as far as AV goes.

Backup Exec stopped working with server 2012. It's been a nightmare trying to get that shit working. :/

 

[HydroSqueegee]

They completely fucked up their last upgrade. We put it into test and it immediately backups far more difficult than they need to be. We're still with the previous version, not that it's a great system but it works, and we're looking to dump Symantec entirely and go with something like Unitrends. I saw a demo of the product, and it's a backup system of beauty.

We're still at 2010 R3 and have no plans to upgrade. We're trying to move to System Center, but being the government, change is almost impossible.

 

[SagaLore]

Most companies make purchase decisions based on brand reputation. Security is a lot more about trust than it is about performance, and symantec is 1 of the top trusted security companies.

 

[nageov3t]

I've been using Symantec Netbackup for a couple years and like it a lot

 

[mvbighead]

The reality of why these are still around, at least to me, is because most suits buy something based on brand recognition. No way are they going to run ESET when a virus breaks out and Mr CEO asks why the hell they aren't using McAfee or Norton. Either that, or someone is putting a little something extra in their pockets.

At this point, we use McAfee. As long as the computer has newer hardware, it's okay. But ones at the end of their 3-4 year life cycle with 2GB of RAM were hosed. We used to have eTrust. While it probably wasn't nearly as capable as McAfee, it didn't hose our systems, which was nice.

Personally, I'd love to use something completely different, but I ain't the one making the decision. Some AV companies seem to have forgotten that people need to compute things on their computers. Meaning that most AV processes are run at a higher priority than other executable which then bleeds other revenue generating applications from resources that they may very well need. Oh well I guess.

 

[Gunbuster]

Symantec also has some super slick technical sales people. They guy that ran the pitch for Altiris had me convinced it would be auto patch everything and give me a bj to boot.

 

[Riverhound777]

We use ShadowProtect for backups, so much easier to just re-image something if there is a problem that can't be solved within a couple hours.

For AV I tend to lean towards the least intrusive product rather than the most effective, which i've found to be MS Security Essentials. I know it gets bad reviews, but it's free, simple, and un-intrusive. For most people it works just fine. For cases where the user is having repeat issues, I leave a full version of Malwarebytes installed. If it gets past that, it's probably some really bad shit, so a rebuild or restore from SP is easier than trying to remove it and repair any damage.

 

[Jeffg010]

This morning I've been fighting with our SEPM server, and every support doc I for the issue I'm having find has different information on it. I keep running in circles.

Oh and I love that bug in v11 and v12 where it creates a temp file in an xfer folder before it quarantines a file, but then it keeps scanning that temp folder and creating new files to quarantine over and over. It's been a known issue for years and they haven't fixed it. The only thing that truly fixes it is uninstalling the client, deleting the xfer folder and reinstalling the client.

Also, when they changed the find unmanaged process in v12, the product became pretty much useless to me. In v11 I used to just find unmanaged computers and push the client out to them, now v12 uses "unmanaged detectors" and it just gives you a list, which you can't do anything with (other than manually typing in each computer name or creating a csv list to deploy to). This product is a mess.

Luckily we already pay for Microsoft Forefront, so once I get some time I'll be pushing that out and we are done renewing symantec.



A friend of mine admins a network with Sophos, he says he loves it. I hear it works correctly with AD and it's simple to monitor, update and deploy clients. Which is all I really care about.

To be honest, in the environments I work in, the viruses are really not a big deal...it's about staying in compliance if there was an audit that is important. These days if there is a virus, we just remotely re-image the computer anyhow, everything is stored on the network drives. I can't remember the last time I actually spent a lot of time troubleshooting a computer with a virus.

I ran into that problem stupid symantec filling up hard drives with 2 gig temp files.

 

[Jaepheth]

From my limited experience, I'd say it's because Symantec has one of the most aggressive marketing/sales departments of any AV company.

 

[shortylickens]

From my limited experience, I'd say it's because Symantec has one of the most aggressive marketing/sales departments of any AV company.

Something I learned watching the tech industry go through changes since I was a young lad: Marketing has way more to do with success than the actual product itself.

That goes for hardware, software, and services.

 

[NutBucket]

We recently switched from Symantec to McAfee. As an end user, McAfee seems to be less resource intensive. No idea which one protects better.

 

[PrototypeZ]

We are switching away from Symantec where I work for a number of reasons. We dumped Altiris for something a bit more robust with better tracking and reporting. Looks to be a winner.

In the backup world, yes, Backup Exec is total crap. Once we moved everything to NetBackup it was much much better. However, some lame brained hack of an admin created a plan to migrate from NetBackup to EMC's Avamar product. The guy who pitched the idea had results based on fantasy typed scenarios and bad estimates for pricing. Turns out the Avamar product is a pain in the ass and the costs are way more than what was projected. We promoted that admin to customer.

The NetBackup environment was so stable and cost less money vs Avamar. While I did not care too much for the sales approach and BS that the account rep spewed (aka salesman who wants to take you to lunch every few weeks). However, their stuff worked fairly well - at least in the backup realm.

 

[BE_Mosla]

Hey rasczak, Check out the details on upcoming Backup Exec support for Windows Server 2012 and sign up for the Beta https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/announcing-new-beta-backup-exec

 

[TwiceOver]

Backup Assist and Vipre.

Symantec is living on old reputation alone at this point.

 

[nageov3t]

Backup Assist and Vipre.

Symantec is living on old reputation alone at this point.

reputation matters, though... we used to use a smaller backup agent to run our backups, and a frequent customer interaction involved "wtf is that program and why are you using it?"

I get a lot less of that when I can just say, "oh, we're running Symantec Netbackup."