Symantec
has released a free version of its Veritas Storage Foundation
storage management product.
The entry-level
software is designed to be used on smaller servers located outside
the main datacentre.
Called Veritas
Storage Foundation Basic, the free solution was unveiled at this
week’s Symantec Vision 2006 user conference in the US.
The paid-for
Storage Foundation product is used mainly by large companies on
central servers running corporate databases. The free product is
aimed at file and web servers outside the main datacentre.
Symantec has
released Storage Foundation Basic to help popularise the use of
Symantec data management software, particularly its Veritas line of
products.
Organisations that
want to use Storage Foundation Basic on servers with more than two
processors, or on servers that host more than four file systems or
hard drive partitions, will have to pay for it.
Symantec is
currently beta-testing version 5.0 of its main Storage Foundation
software suite, which is expected to ship in July.
Earlier this week
at the Vision conference, Symantec admitted that its customer
support for some Veritas products had not been up to the mark.
It admitted that
it had failed to provide enough skilled support for users of
Veritas, which it acquired last year.