Full Disk Encryption Options

[Mide]

So we're researching to see what good options are out there in terms of Centrally-controlled full disk encryption. I'm seeing Pointsec, McAfee Endpoint, and Symantec PGP. Does anyone use any of these products? If so could you answer the following questions?

1) How are you liking it?
2) Ballpark how much was it per license/user?
3) How is the management interface/AD integration?
4) How is the "data recovery" if everything goes to hell and the drive gets corrupt and such?
5) Would you recommend your product or something else?

I'll, of course, be doing internal evals, but I don't want to waste any time if a product sucks or is too expensive.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

I've tried pointsec and PGP. Our place has decided to use PGP and now i have to start encrypting laptops.
I liked both but apparently PGP has better central management. I've only started but it seems very easy to use. I don't know the cost since we are not paying for it ourselves.
Data recovery is possible with PGP with a recovery boot cd and the token which you can get from the admin console. If it comes to it, many drive recovery vendors also support it.
I don't know much about the backend interface since i just got access to it and haven't got to try it yet but the program itself is relatively straightforward and AD integration is good.
I would recommend PGP from my experience so far. Let me know if you have any questions,

 

[Mide]

Excellent initial synopsis. Thanks for that. Yeah I've put in for a trial version so I can test it out in the lab here.

 

[seepy83]

I use PGP WDE (now owned by Symantec) with a PGP Universal Server for central management. I use it with Aladdin eTokens for 2-factor authentication. I've been using it for about 2 years now, with a relatively small deployment of approximately 35 laptops.

Overall, I would recommend it, and I chose it, because I think they have the best central management options available. But I would also note that I had a ticket open with them regarding errors durring enrollement/encryption that took 180+ days to get resolved. That 180 days included time when the product owned and supported PGP Corp and when the company was bought by Symantec and support was handed off to them. I have no doubt in my mind that the acquisition by Symantec was part of the reason for the ticket taking so long to get resolved, which I can rationalize to a certain extent.

From this point forward, we just need to see what Symantec does with the product. There is a lot of potential for destroying a good thing.