Symantec Announces Availability of Veritas NetBackup 6.5

Market leading data protection platform unifies disk-based data protection technologies

CUPERTINO, Calif.– Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the availability of the latest release of Veritas NetBackup, the market-leading enterprise data protection solution1. Announced in June at Symantec’s Vision 2007 annual user conference, NetBackup 6.5 offers the industry’s only platform to unite leading next-generation data protection offerings including tape, virtual tape libraries (VTLs), disk backup, data deduplication, continuous data protection (CDP), snapshots and replication.

With Veritas NetBackup 6.5, Symantec is now delivering on the first technology pillar of its Storage United business initiative which helps enterprises address their most pressing storage challenges with a unified, software-oriented approach. Building further on this initiative, Symantec unveiled the second pillar of Storage United with the Aug. 1 announcement of Veritas CommandCentral Storage 5.0, a next-generation storage resource management (SRM) solution.

“NetBackup 6.5 puts disk right at the heart of NetBackup,” said Matt Kixmoeller, senior director, product management, Symantec. “By providing a platform that can manage all of today’s innovative data protection technologies, NetBackup 6.5 allows customers to continue to leverage tape, while also giving them flexibility to take full advantage of a number of next-generation data protection technologies such as replication, snapshots, CDP and deduplication.”

NetBackup 6.5 Delivers Next Generation Data Protection Platform

NetBackup 6.5 now provides customers with a single platform for integrated end-to-end management of heterogeneous data protection technologies. The NetBackup platform offers enterprises unprecedented choice and flexibility to select best-of-breed technologies in replication, snapshots, CDP, data deduplication, encryption, virtual tape and traditional tape – either from Symantec or leading third-party vendors. New features and enhancements in NetBackup 6.5 include extensive disk-based backup capabilities, data deduplication, granular recovery for VMware, deep integration with intelligent backup appliances and VTLs, heterogeneous snapshot management and innovative new licensing and pricing programs.

Key highlights of NetBackup 6.5 include:

* Comprehensive disk management capabilities facilitate the deployment of disk-based data protection to improve backup operations, speed recovery and shrink backup windows. These capabilities include native data deduplication that can be leveraged by the entire NetBackup environment, native disk backup and recovery capabilities, deep integration with intelligent disk appliances and VTLs, and heterogeneous snapshot and CDP management.
* NetBackup 6.5 delivers the most comprehensive protection for VMware environments, providing an industry first by enabling granular file-level and image level-recovery from a single backup, along with deduplication for VMware backups.
* Similarly in Microsoft SharePoint environments, NetBackup 6.5 offers database and document-level recovery from the same backup, eliminating the need for multiple backups of the same system.
* NetBackup 6.5 provides an instant recovery feature for Microsoft Exchange environments that enables administrators to recover from a disk-based snapshot, enabling faster recovery and minimizing disruptions.
* A new lightweight SAN client which drives backup and recovery jobs over the Storage Area Network, dramatically shrinking backup and recovery times when compared to traditional LAN backup.

Capacity-Based Pricing Model Offers Choice and Flexibility

Symantec also introduced the industry’s first capacity-based pricing option for enterprise data protection software with NetBackup 6.5. Customers now have the choice of licensing NetBackup software on a capacity-based model (based upon the total amount of data being protected) or continuing to use the traditional per-server model.