LAS VEGAS – Symantec Vision 2007 – June 12, 2007 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the latest release of Veritas NetBackup, the market-leading enterprise data protection solution¹. Veritas NetBackup 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 – across all major vendors. To support this platform, NetBackup 6.5 introduces a host of new features and enhancements including native disk-based backup, data deduplication, deep integration with intelligent backup appliances and VTLs, heterogeneous snapshot management, granular recovery for critical applications and virtual machines, and innovative new licensing and pricing programs.
“Our goal is to maximize IT resources and reduce costs whileimproving performance. As part of our initiatives, we increasingly leverage disk in our backup environments and Veritas NetBackup provides us with a single, integrated platform for disk-based protection and data deduplication,” said Brian Glowacki vice president, lead architect, JPMorgan Chase Global Storage Technology. “NetBackup 6.5 will help reduce data loss and speed recovery, while driving down operating costs and improving the accessibility of our data. With Symantec, our critical information is secure and available.”NetBackup Platform Delivers Next-Generation Data Protection
Symantec has unified its enterprise data protection technologies into a single flagship offering — the NetBackup platform, a single solution for centralized, end-to-end management of heterogeneous data protection technologies. Many enterprises are interested in deploying next-generation data protection technologies, but have been reluctant to do so because of the complexity introduced by numerous disparate point products – each with their own agents, policies, schedulers, recovery processes, user interfaces and reporting tools. With the NetBackup platform, enterprises get the best of both worlds: 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 storage vendors. In addition, the NetBackup platform provides a single tool to manage all these various vendors and technologies, which means a single approach to agents, policy management, recovery processes, security, backup reporting and the data catalog.
“As disk-based data protection becomes the mainstream strategy for enterprises, users require a more robust set of enterprise disk features that enhance capacity, flexibility, performance and reliability and allow them to customize backup and recovery according to their application needs,” said Lauren Whitehouse, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “Symantec is delivering a rich set of features that provide better utilization of disk technologies, along with an integrated platform to centrally manage all key data protection technologies.”
Innovative Disk-Based Backup Technologies Improve Backup Operations
As the cost of high capacity disk continues to fall, more storage professionals are leveraging disk as a core element of their enterprise protection strategy to improve backup operations, speed recovery and shrink backup windows. NetBackup 6.5 features four new capabilities that allow users to take full advantage of the power of disk-based data protection:
- Native data deduplication that can be leveraged by the entire NetBackup environment extending from desktops and laptops, to remote office servers, to enterprise data centers
- Native disk backup capabilities which enable pooling, sharing and backup over the SAN to a large pool of shared disk
- Deep integration with intelligent backup appliances and VTLs
- Heterogeneous snapshot and CDP management
With its PureDisk Deduplication Option, NetBackup 6.5 integrates Symantec’s PureDisk deduplication technology into the core of NetBackup to ensure that redundant backup information is only stored once across the entire enterprise backup environment, consolidating desktops and laptops, remote offices and data centers. This global approach to deduplication has commonly yielded 50-500X data deduplication rates when compared to traditional backup methods. In addition, the new Flexible Disk Option enables backup administrators to perform high speed SAN backup to a disk pool shared by the entire backup environment. This speeds performance and also delivers better utilization of both the network and the storage.
For customers deploying intelligent backup appliances and VTLs, NetBackup 6.5 delivers deep integration and powerful management capabilities. Virtual Tape Option enhances the performance and manageability of virtual tape devices by copying data directly from the VTL to tape, using a process that is controlled by NetBackup in a catalog-consistent manner. NetBackup integration with such intelligent backup appliances is even further enhanced through the OpenStorage Option, which leverages Symantec’s innovative OpenStorage API, allowing intelligent backup appliances to integrate natively with NetBackup. An industry first, the OpenStorage API enables NetBackup to treat these devices as disk, enabling users to take full advantage of the performance and features offered by disk while at the same time relying on NetBackup as the single interface to control and manage these advanced capabilities. Announced in late 2006, the OpenStorage program demonstrates Symantec’s commitment to offer the industry’s deepest integration with intelligent disk devices and has garnered support from nearly every major vendor of intelligent backup devices.
“Disk is fundamentally changing the data protection landscape,” said Kris Hagerman, group president, Data Center Management, Symantec. “NetBackup 6.5 enables customers to unlock the full potential of disk for increased flexibility and performance in backup and recovery, while providing a single platform to manage across all the exciting new technologies driving the next generation of data protection.”
Advanced Recovery for Virtual Machines and Enterprise Applications Improve Recovery Time
Responding to the growing popularity of virtual machines and the challenges associated with backing up those environments, NetBackup 6.5 delivers a comprehensive solution for VMware protection, providing consolidated backup, granular file-level and image-level recovery from a single backup, and deduplication for VMware backups. NetBackup leverages VMware Consolidated Backup, a capability provided by VMware, to guarantee consistency and remove the backup burden from the primary VMware server host. NetBackup 6.5 also goes a step further, by introducing a breakthrough capability to enable a single image-level backup to deliver both full-image or granular file-level recovery. Finally, VMware backups can be performed to tape or disk, and can apply the new PureDisk Deduplication Option for deduplication and replication of VMware backups. This comprehensive approach enables fast, low-impact VMware backups and data deduplication, and at the same time delivers unprecedented flexibility to restore the entire virtual machine or individual files, all through a single backup process.
NetBackup 6.5 improves recovery time for many key enterprise applications by offering granular recovery of files and objects to allow businesses to get up and running fast in the wake of an outage. For 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. For Microsoft Exchange environments, NetBackup provides an instant recovery feature that enables administrators to recover from a disk-based snapshot, enabling faster recovery and minimizing disruptions.
Industry’s First Capacity-Based Pricing Model Offers Increased Flexibility
Responding to growing customer interest in aligning their purchasing model for data protection software with their approach to storage hardware procurement, Symantec has introduced the industry’s first capacity-based pricing option for an enterprise data protection software offering. With NetBackup 6.5, customers now have the choice of licensing NetBackup infrastructure on a capacity-based model (based upon the total amount of data being protected) or continuing to use the traditional per-server model. In addition, customers that remain on the traditional server-based pricing approach will benefit from a dramatically simplified pricing structure in which dozens of clients, agents and modules are now grouped into three easy-to-order options. Symantec has also included some advanced features (such as heterogeneous bare metal restore), which previously were separately priced options, and incorporated them into the standard NetBackup client at no additional fee.
Symantec Global Services Help Customers Move to Next Generation Backup Technology
Symantec next-generation Data Protection Assessment and Upgrade consulting services help customers take full advantage of the NetBackup platform. These new services deliver a comprehensive assessment to determine the optimal blend and use of the latest NetBackup technologies, along with a smooth upgrade path and product deployment for existing NetBackup 5.x or 6.0 environments to the latest advanced capabilities of NetBackup 6.5. For sustained management of enterprise NetBackup environments, Symantec offers Data Protection Operational and Residency services, providing cost-effective outsourcing and staff-augmentation services. Symantec Education Services also offer technical training, IT best practices education, and custom learning services to help organizations optimize their data protection solutions.
*all information is taken from http://www.symantec.com/about/news/release/article.jsp?prid=20070612_02