Backup Exec vs Enterprise Vault

Hi,

We’re about to purchase Symantec Enterprise Vault to archive MS Exchange mailboxes. I’ve been reading Symantec’s announcements that Backup Exec 2010 can also archive. Can someone please explain the differences between two products. This is what I found on Backup Exec site.

Backup Exec Exchange Archiving Option NEW Backup Exec Exchange Archive Option provides unified backup and archiving for growing Exchange environments by uniquely archiving data from the backup copy rather than by separately pulling data from the source. The archive option will provide administrators with the ability to reduce redundant data from the Exchange server source to free up storage space. Users can easily retrieve individual archived emails using the Backup Exec Retrieve Google-like web UI and administrators can retrieve archived data through the Backup Exec console. Overall administrators will be able to easily index data and set retention periods to efficiently manage data lifecycles.
Supports Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows 2008 and Windows 2008 R2
Licensed per 10/100 user packs
Requires an Exchange Agent for each Exchange Server

Solution: Backup Exec vs Enterprise Vault

The archiving option for Backup Exec is basically "Enterprise Vault Lite". It is based on the EV technology, with Backup Exec calling on EV components that get installed on the BE server though EV API's.
The BE archiving option has restricted functionality compared to the full EV product.
Some of the differences I know about:
* The archive option will archive from the Exchange backups made with Backup Exec, where EV will archive from the live server.
* EV can optionally leave shortcuts to the archive data in the user's mailbox which the user can click to retrieve the email. The BE archiving option will just delete the emails from the production database without leaving a shortcut. End-users can search for and retrieve the BE archived email from a web page though.
* EV is capable of archiving from Lotus Domino and SharePoint. This is not possible with the BEAO.
* EV is more scalable. I.e. in large environments the EV components can be split out across multiple servers to balance the load. This is not possible with the BE archiving option.

And as paulsolov wrote, when you have EV, you are still likely to need Backup Exec with the EV agent to back up your archived data.

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