Symantec Updates Backup Appliances

Symantec Corp. announced updates to its backup appliances, NetBackup 5220 and Backup Exec 3600, which now include NetBackup 7.5 and Backup Exec 2012 software announced earlier this year.

      NetBackup 5220
 
For many customers, the challenges with protecting virtual and physical servers have been caused by the proliferation of as many as seven different backup solutions in a single environment and the integration problems between the hardware and software. Individual point solutions for target deduplication and virtual machine backup have only added to the complexity that has forced administrators to call for a new approach.

Symantec’s backup appliances deliver an end-to-end integrated backup appliance for servers, storage, and software.
 
"Earlier this year, we announced our new approach to delivering better backup to our customers, introducing ground-breaking new features to replace outdated and complicated approaches. Beyond features, we are changing the market with technologies like our purpose-built appliances that combine backup software, servers, storage and deduplication in a single solution – a key part of our strategy to drive complexity and costs out of the backup market," said Deepak Mohan, SVP, Information Management Group at Symantec. "Both our Backup Exec and NetBackup appliances provide customers with an all-in-one platform that centralizes backup for physical and virtual environments and maximizes performance with end-to-end deduplication – all on a pre-configured device supported by Symantec."
 
NetBackup 5220 Key Features:

• NetBackup Accelerator: Helps shrink big backups into smaller backup windows by delivering full backups at the speed of incremental backups for up to 100 times faster backup.
• Replication Director: Brings the speed of snapshots and the recoverability of backup together to protect large volumes of data and virtual machines.
• Symantec V-Ray Technology: Protects up to 3,000 VMware virtual machines with a single appliance while enabling fast file or image recovery with less hardware (e.g., direct VMware vSphere backups without proxy servers).
• Auto Image Replication: Enables disaster recovery over the network by combining deduplication with replication so you can stop putting tapes on trucks or helicopters.
• Symantec Critical System Protection: Combines security and storage to protect appliances and backup data against zero day attacks and malicious insider threats.
• WAN Optimization: Provides reliable backups even in high latency environments.

Backup Exec 3600 Key Features:

• Next Gen Backup User Experience: Changes the way backups are managed by organizing them around systems and information. Optimized and priced for SMB customers, policies and settings are designed so organizations can implement expert backup policies without being experts in backup.
• Symantec V-Ray: Unites virtual and physical backups to deliver single-pass backups of VMware, Hyper-V and the physical hosts they run on so users can recover virtual machines, applications, databases, files, folders and even granular objects in seconds.
• Free Disaster Recovery Built-In: Integrated bare metal recovery includes Backup-to-Virtual (B2V) and Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) conversion technologies to allow users to recover a failed system to a VMware or Hyper-V guest. All Backup Exec customers who upgrade to BE 2012 have access to this at no cost, enabling businesses that thought disaster recovery was out of reach to implement a plan.
• Tape-Out Support: Backup Exec 3600 appliance has added tape support for additional longer-term or offsite data protection.
• Cloud Recovery as a Service: With the Cloud disaster recovery option, customers can leverage cloud recovery as a service powered by Doyenz for planned and unplanned system recovery of VMware environments.
• Data Deduplication: Users can protect more data while reducing storage by up to 90 percent and improve backup performance through integrated deduplication and archiving technology.

While many solutions require the IT team to integrate multiple solutions for tape, disk, dedupe, physical, virtual snapshots and backup, Symantec appliances are typically installed in less than 30 minutes and deliver integrated hardware, software and dedupe storage, providing customers with simplicity and performance from one vendor.
 
Since launching
its Better Backup for All initiative in February:

• More than 20,000 new customers have purchased Backup Exec and NetBackup software or appliances.
• In the last 12 months Symantec has seen 250 percent growth in new appliance customers and 450 percent growth in the number of units shipped.
• Appliance customers are coming back for more, with sales figures showing 40 percent of purchases from repeat customers.
• NetBackup as a product line crossed the $1 billion in bookings mark – the first standalone backup product to reach that milestone.
• NetBackup and Backup Exec with V-Ray continue to differentiate Symantec backup for VMware and Hyper-V.

Symantec NetBackup 5220 and Backup Exec 3600 appliances are available in select countries.

"We chose Symantec backup appliances, specifically the NetBackup 5200 series, because they allow us to quickly modernize our data protection environment. Appliances help reduce operating expenses around backup and lower risk," said Jesse Determann, director, Distributed Architecture, Continuum Health Partners, Inc. "NetBackup 7.5 on the appliance will help drive even greater efficiency and lower costs with NetBackup Accelerator, new VMware support with direct vSphere backup, and expanded deduplication capabilities. Symantec has tightly integrated software, hardware, and support to make backup and disaster recovery easier."

"The Backup Exec 3600 appliance was exactly what we needed at the time and remarkably easy to deploy and configure. We simply had to power it up and then let it go to work on managing our physical and virtual backups," said Brian Bennett, IT associate, IOMAX USA. "We found that it immediately reduced our backup window and the simplicity of the new user interface has streamlined the process for setting up new backup jobs for our virtual systems – saving us a ton of time and effort."

"Symantec and Intel have worked closely to develop the architecture for integrated backup appliance solutions based on Intel Server System SR2625UR and Symantec software. The collaboration with Symantec results in reliable and highly scalable systems that are optimized for energy efficiency," said David L. Brown, GM, Enterprise Platforms and Services Division, Intel Corporation. "These integrated and tested solutions can lower power and operating costs by minimizing server, network, and storage integration challenges in IT organizations."