We are currently working with companies in the financial sector which is why we are using this on-premises solution, because their compliance policies do not allow for cloud-based servers. Our clients are using the full encryptions. They're using Symantec Endpoint Encryption to secure their data. If someone loses their laptop, for example, they can wipe their disk and save their data from ending up with a third party.
I like all the features in Symantec Endpoint because they provide four or five features for end-users. They have three consoles for managing the data. Symantec also provides the licensing with the software. There is no need to enter the licensing or install files manually because it's bundled with the software. This is a good feature. Also, you get updates and other encrypted files easily. I also like the manage keys.
There is no need to add any features, because they are developing their own encryption methods.
Currently, all the software has been managed by BitLocker, but Windows does not suit every encryption management software.
There are many apps that do that kind of thing. All the features are there so I don't think that needs to be on encryption software. I'm working with some end point management software and they are managing the software and connections, what can be installed and what is restricted, etc... But more features need to be included in the encryption software.
I have been using Symantec Endpoint Encryption for one year.
Their scalability is good. They are using three consoles and have full-consoling end point users for our solutions.
On a scale of one to ten I would rate Symantec Endpoint an eight.
The following measurements were taken with a Lenovo Thinkpad W500 with 8Gb ram & running Windows 7 SP1+fixes. The CPU is a 2.5 Ghz core duo.
Whilst not intending to do a thorough controlled test, I thought it would be interesting to see what the effect of Symantec PGP encryption might be on I/O performance
Here’s my SSD before encryption
And here’s the same afterwards
Write speed has roughly been quartered whilst read speed is a little over half
Given this is an SSD the overall throughput is still decent, though this came with a significant increase in CPU – in fact this is now the limiting factor it seems, with the “System” (ie kernel) showing maxed out CPU whilst previously this CPU wasn’t noticeably high
With the hard drive the before measurements were :
Pretty consistent and average for a hard drive. Now adding encryption
Nowhere near such a bad effect – less consistency, but due to the lower data rates the cpu load was lower, and not so close to being maxed out.
This was all done on an idle machine – so the biggest impact will be heavy UI when the system is busy. I expect bootup to be quite a bit slower for this reason
