Symantec Raises the Bar for Next Generation Information Management

NetBackup Platform extends unique recovery capabilities for Microsoft and virtual environments, while enhanced deduplication reduces costs and improves manageability.

Cupertino, Calif. – Delivering on its data deduplication strategy, Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced new releases to its NetBackup Platform to help organizations improve operational and storage efficiencies across physical and virtual environments. NetBackup provides quick recovery of information and reduces overall complexity by uniting next generation information management technologies for disk backup, data deduplication, virtual machine protection, continuous data protection (CDP) and replication in the heterogeneous enterprise data center.

“Deduplication is a primary focus for Symantec, and we will continue to deliver innovative technology that helps organizations achieve significant storage and cost savings while providing advanced recovery capabilities and centralized management to meet our customers’ demanding business requirements,” said Matt Kixmoeller, vice president of product management, Information Management Group, Symantec. “We are confident the latest releases of NetBackup will further raise the industry standard for quality, scalability and reliability.”

News Facts:

* The next release of NetBackup PureDisk, scheduled to be available later this year, will require 50 percent less server hardware by expanding backup data storage to 16TB per backup server. This will enable organizations to lower their storage cost by deduplicating more backup data – up to 160 TB – with one PureDisk server. PureDisk now stores up to 8x more data than source-based deduplication competitors on comparable server hardware. The new release will also improve deduplication for VMware image files (VMDKs) to reduce virtual backup storage requirements by up to 90 percent versus previous versions.
* The latest version of NetBackup delivers a highly efficient process for single file restore for virtual machines for both Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware, including vSphere, by allowing organizations to restore virtual machine information directly from disk or tape without using additional storage. NetBackup also allows organizations to restore data quicker and in fewer storage and server cycles by providing the ability to restore any file from within a single virtual machine image.
* NetBackup extends its support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008, achieving “Certified for Windows 2008” status. New Windows features include Symantec’s patent pending Granular Recovery Technology for SharePoint and Active Directory to allow object-level recovery from a single-pass backup and provide organizations with rapid recovery of Windows Servers.
* Veritas Backup Reporter adds reporting for Enterprise Vault to provide a single view of both backup and archiving activities, such as identifying the quantity of archived data by business unit or geography. This provides simplified operations and better predictions of storage consumption, making Backup Reporter the first and only heterogeneous reporting solution to unify reporting across backup and archive.
* Symantec also delivers new benefits for organizations using data deduplication from third-party storage appliances through its OpenStorage API. New OpenStorage features enable faster recovery from disk at replicated sites and faster backup to deduplication appliances using less bandwidth through a “virtual synthetics” feature, allowing customers to conduct incremental backups on a daily basis and instantly re-synthesize full backups on supported appliances for duplication to tape. Organizations can send fewer full backups to their backup servers and storage to save time and bandwidth.


Supporting Quotes:

* “As a leading provider of construction management services from coast to coast, Skanska USA Building has offices and job sites spread across the nation. Deduplication has helped us reduce the volume of data backed up to our data center and has provided cost savings on remote site management, backup and storage in the field,” said Troy Reavis, Director of IT, Skanska USA Building. “NetBackup PureDisk has delivered on its promise of cutting storage costs by 40 to 50 percent, while NetBackup simplified the management of our global backup infrastructure.”
* “With IT organizations under constant pressure to manage information more efficiently and effectively, having a robust toolset has become a business imperative,” said Laura DuBois, research director in the Storage Software group at IDC. “Symantec’s ongoing enhancements to its backup and recovery technologies demonstrate that the company understands the needs of IT organizations, knows how to meet those needs and can deliver timely solutions that produce measurable results.”


AVAILABILITY/PRICING

* NetBackup 6.5.4 is available now at a suggested starting price of $5,000 USD per server
* Veritas Backup Reporter 6.6 is available now at a suggested starting price of $178 USD per client for backup data and $5.19 USD per Exchange mailbox for Enterprise Vault reporting
* NetBackup PureDisk 6.6 is scheduled to be available in late 2009