Veritas Bundles Storage Backup and Management for SMBs

NEW YORK—To help small and midsize business customers boost the speed and central administration of distributed storage backups and enable self-assisting disk-based data protection, Veritas Software Corp. on Tuesday unveiled Backup Exec 10.0 for Windows Servers software and its newly bundled Veritas Backup Exec Suite.

The Veritas Backup Exec software suite offers integration between the revamped Veritas Backup Exec 10.0, Veritas Replication Exec 3.1 (formerly Veritas Storage Replicator) and Veritas Storage Exec 5.3 (formerly Veritas StorageCentral), managed through a single console.

"The number one thing [SMBs] need is efficiency—they need low-cost IT," said Gary Bloom, CEO and president of Mountain View, Calif.-based Veritas, during a Tuesday press conference here. "They have limited budgets and increasing data volumes just as all the (larger) enterprises have. They need a technology that can grow with them."

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Last month, Symantec Corp. purchased Veritas for $13.5 billion. The acquisition should drive Veritas' offerings deeper into unfamiliar SMB territory, analysts say. Bloom said that Tuesday's announcements signal that the company will be able to take advantage of strong OEM channels it previously lacked.

Click here to read more analysis of the Symantec-Veritas deal.

Backup Exec 10.0 for Windows Servers offers continuous data protection for on-site and remote backups, central administration, and an advanced disk-based backup option that includes new features such as Synthetic Backup and Off-Host Backup, according to Bloom. Synthetic Backup melds together smaller incremental backups into a single synthetic full backup to streamline restore times. Off-Host Backup provides data protection across SANs (storage area networks) by shifting data snapshot backups to alternate storage systems in an automated process.

Veritas officials stressed that customers need to implement improved storage resource management by removing the need to backup unnecessary files, to better manage storage backup times and productivity levels. To meet those goals, Backup Exec Suite has been enhanced to include Backup Exec SmartLink technology, which integrates job status views and alerts of Replication Exec in the Backup Exec console. It also has the capability to archive or backup data from Storage Exec using Backup Exec.

For remote multi-stage backup and data protection, a new advanced option offered with Backup Exec 10.0, called Central Administration Server, enables IT administrators to monitor and manage multiple Backup Exec servers from a single console.

Additionally, changes to any files will be automatically captured and applied using Backup Exec, meaning users can restore their own files without IT intervention since a copy of the data will be saved to disk.

To improve storage utilization, Backup Exec Suite features Automated Quota Management to force users to clean up space on the file server via retention policies, as well as the ability to proactively block unwanted or non-business-critical files via passive or active warning alerts.

Veritas is also introducing a single server version of Backup Exec called Backup Exec QuickStart Edition aimed at the SMB audience. The lower-end product is essentially a starter kit for Backup Exec and will be sold through OEM channels as prepackaged server options.

Veritas Backup Exec 10.0 is currently available with pricing starting at $895. Veritas Backup Exec suite starts at $4280 with a year of full technical support. Veritas Replication Exec and Storage Exec are available as standalone products starting at $1495 and $795, respectively.

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