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Symantec Enhances Interoperability through the Open Collaborative Architecture


WEBWIRE

Standards-based architecture will allow Dell to standardize its systems management offerings on the Symantec Management Platform

ORLANDO – ManageFusion – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the Open Collaborative Architecture and a new third-party developer program to establish greater interoperability with Symantec solutions and provide customers, partners and ISVs with the ability to integrate their applications with the Symantec Management Platform (formerly the Altiris Platform). The Open Collaborative Architecture is an open, standards-based set of guidelines and technologies that enables collaboration across Symantec’s product portfolio and third-party solutions. The architecture allows customers to maximize their investments through easy management of the infrastructure with greater confidence, efficiency and control across more platforms.

The Open Collaborative Architecture prescribes an evolutionary approach to interoperability and solution building. Using standard Web services, Web-based security, workflow management and configuration management technologies, the Open Collaborative Architecture provides customers with greater flexibility to build complex, multi-disciplinary solutions that can be tailored to specific business needs. The Web services-based architecture provides data sharing and IT automation to streamline process execution and reduce the cost and risk of IT ownership.

Other major software vendors have previously promoted interoperability but have either architected monolithic platforms or collaborated within a specific vertical market. Symantec differs with the Open Collaborative Architecture by using existing technologies that are a part of the Symantec portfolio to build on customers’ existing IT investments so that a wholesale replacement of the existing infrastructure is not required.

“IT organizations often have the right people, tools and best practices in place but lack the resources to connect them in a way that provides business value,” said Brad Kingsbury, senior vice president, Endpoint Security and Management, Symantec. “Through the Open Collaborative Architecture, Symantec is uniquely positioned to help our customers have confidence in how they implement their products by integrating best-of-breed technologies and capabilities across our product portfolio. The Open Collaborative Architecture allows the IT industry to move beyond discreet management boundaries into an area of collaboration.”

The Symantec Management Platform—a core technology of the Open Collaborative Architecture—leverages the current Altiris infrastructure, technology and model to rapidly deliver integration in order to react to customers’ changing needs, regardless of the technology stack. Symantec has already leveraged the platform to integrate technologies from some of its key products, including Symantec Endpoint Protection, Backup Exec System Recovery, Veritas Configuration Manager and Data Loss Prevention.

Third-party solutions can also be integrated on the platform to help reduce the overall costs of managing and supporting multi-discipline, multi-platform and multi-vendor IT solutions. As new technology issues arise that are outside of Symantec’s area of focus, such as network management, third-party products that solve these problems can be integrated into the platform and offered to customers quickly to ensure that information, infrastructure and processes are protected completely, managed easily and controlled automatically. Symantec is using the platform to adapt to customers’ most pressing requirements for business alignment, cost reduction, improved IT service, enhanced end-user experience and proactive security.

“With increasing security threats and the need to protect corporate information, IT organizations continue to add solutions to secure, manage and backup their infrastructures,” said Fred Broussard, research director in the Systems Infrastructure Software group at IDC. “The result is a multitude of management consoles, agent components, storage and database requirements that pose training, management and support challenges. Getting these solutions to integrate takes considerable time and energy and the resulting output may still not satisfy IT requirements. Architectures that streamline and integrate processes, such as the Symantec Open Collaborative Architecture, help solve this problem by simplifying management in a complex world.”

Dell to Standardize on Symantec Management Platform

As a major initiative related to the Symantec Open Collaborative Architecture, Dell is working to standardize its systems management offerings for all Dell enterprise class machines on the Symantec Management Platform by early 2009. Dell’s adoption of the management platform as the foundation for its flagship enterprise management console further substantiates the value of the Open Collaborative Architecture and its value to the companies’ joint customers. Going forward, Symantec and Dell are aggressively building out a comprehensive roadmap to use the platform in Dell systems such as Dell PowerEdge™ servers and blades, Dell Latitude™ Laptops, Dell Precision™ Workstations and Dell OptiPlex™ Desktops.

“With the Dell Management Console as a modular plug-in to the Symantec Management Platform, we will be able to offer one of the most simple, flexible, cost-effective ways for our customers to backup, secure and manage enterprise data ,” said Sally Stevens, director of product marketing at Dell. “We will offer customers a single view to manage all of their computing resources without additional infrastructure. Using the Open Collaborative Architecture will let us simplify IT so customers improve productivity and reduce management costs.”

Symantec Introduces Symantec Developer Program

The new Symantec Developer Program opens up the Symantec Management Platform to third-party products and technologies. The subscription-based developer program provides products, support services and developer communities to help Symantec customers, partners and third-party developers leverage and extend the Symantec Management Platform. To date, more than 60 commercial partners have successfully created products that are integrated with the platform, including the following new partners:

* Bit9 – offers trust-based adaptive application whitelisting allowing IT to better manage and protect enterprise environments. The addition of this capability to Symantec’s portfolio allows customers to automate the creation of application whitelists. Bit9’s integrated offering is available now.
* Dorado Software - heterogeneous network and service management offers visibility into and control of IT infrastructure while complementing Symantec’s endpoint management increasing overall Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) compliance. Dorado Software’s integrated offering enables Symantec’s customers to manage datacenter network infrastructure and services from one console and is scheduled to be available in November.
* Savant Protection - application whitelisting and software verification that complements base antivirus offerings by preventing unauthorized applications from running. Savant’s technology controls the execution of applications by establishing a unique key, or signature, for each application and device. Savant Protection’s integrated offering is currently under development.

The Symantec Developer Program includes compatibility testing to insure interoperability and the Symantec verification logos that are used to promote tested and approved solutions and their interoperability with all other solutions built upon the platform. Additionally, the Developer Program offers the Symantec Developer Portal as a central resource for the latest software development kits (SDKs) and documentation updates, a developer-oriented discussion forum, a library of frequently asked questions and supplemental sample code.

“The Symantec Developer Program opens the Symantec Management Platform to us and our customers and encourages all to take advantage of the Open Collaborative Architecture for rapid development of new, robust management solutions,” said Tim Sebring, CEO of Dorado Software. “This program helps us get the most out of our Platform investment by providing us with the ability to develop our own solutions natively integrated with Symantec and, in the process, offer verified solutions to the rest of the world.”

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Note to Editors: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Forward-looking Statements: Any forward-looking indication of plans for products is preliminary and all future release dates are tentative and are subject to change. Any future release of the product or planned modifications to product capability, functionality or feature are subject to ongoing evaluation by Symantec, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by Symantec and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.



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