The Background
This mid-sized county, located in southwestern Pennsylvania has grown over the years into a center of high technology and advanced manufacturing. The county boasts a major university, three colleges, three premier hospitals and efficient access to all cultural, retail and sports activities in the Pittsburgh region.
The Challenge
The county has over 800 employees with one central campus and a few satellite locations. Many employees either work from home or are business travelers, which makes remote access critical for day-to-day operations. The county is also required to be compliant with Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law where certain records of the Commonwealth and any agency performing essential governmental functions must be open for examination and inspection by citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. All government information is public unless it is protected information, such as health and social security information. In the past, the county did not have a means for the public to search for specific criteria while redacting protected information. The county realized it needed a search/index and email archive system to meet its growing needs while maintaining the integrity of its systems already implemented.
The Solution
After reviewing various archiving solutions and how each of those would work with systems already implemented, the county decided Symantec Enterprise Vault (EV) was the most compatible. EV had a PST migration and search functionality that was needed to help the county comply with Pennsylvania law. The county had worked with Nortec in the past and felt they were the most qualified to implement EV. In fact, Nortec is one of only two companies in the Pittsburgh area certified and capable of designing, implementing and supporting an EV solution.
Implementation was seamless. Nortec presented an integration proposal and had the county up and running within a week. There was no disruption in daily activities. The county was able to remove a large amount of data from its main server e-mail servers, which made it much easier for them to maintain exchange stores. Nortec also made sure to educate the county on EV so it could create its own archives and conduct electronic discovery.
The Benefits
The county now has the tools to complete Right to Know Act requests that had previously been impossible. The county’s messaging environment runs significantly more smoothly and it can back up data in a timely and efficient manner.
Since the initial implementation, the county had Nortec upgrade Enterprise Vault, which also was a seamless process. As a result, Nortec will continue to upgrade and maintain their system along with helping the county evolve as its needs grow.