Symantec has announced version 6.2 of its NetBackup PureDisk
data deduplication product. New features include integration
with its Veritas Backup Reporter product, as well as new support
for online failover for PureDisk environments with multiple
servers.
Two months ago, Symantec announced the beginnings of the
integration between the products, with PureDisk version 6.1. Both
version 6.1 and 6.2 are in preparation for the next major release
of NetBackup and PureDisk 6.5, which is expected to be unveiled in
June as part of Symantec's annual Vision conference.
"As data protection is evolving, what customers are asking for
is a management layer and integration between tools rather than
just handing them more new products," said Marty Ward, director of
product marketing for the NetBackup group at Symantec. "That's what
you're seeing come together in NetBackup."
Though there are still steps that could be taken -- integration
with bare-metal restore, for example -- Lauren Whitehouse, analyst
with the Enterprise Strategy Group said that at this point Symantec
is "taking integration further than any other backup vendor has
taken it. There's talk about next-generation data protection, but
it's been on the fringes of the data center. Boxes like Data Domain
don't solve problems like the capacity glut at the client."
Whitehouse also praised the integration with Reporter in
PureDisk 6.2, which she had cited as a glaring omission at the time
the Reporter product was announced in January.
Version 6.2 also includes a security feature called Data Lock
that allows end users to password-protect data so that it is
invisible to PureDisk system administrators without interrupting
the backup process. This move probably ties in with Symantec's
latest announcement that it is entering the Software as a Service
(SaaS) market in backup and recovery, according to Whitehouse.
Despite all the talk about PureDisk updates up front, still more
are reportedly in the future for the newly integrated product.
Rumor has it the failover feature could also lead to the ability to
cluster PureDisk clients for automatic load balancing, for example,
and policy-based management is also being talked about as a new
feature. (Symantec officials declined to comment on exactly what's
coming.)
Backup Reporter's integration with NetBackup is also still not
as tight as it could be. Backup Reporter has hooks into NetBackup
Version 6.0, which can allow Backup Reporter users to "drill down"
into backup jobs that have failed, relate them to a particular
host, and then either reset policies or initiate a backup. But
taking action within NetBackup requires clicking a link to open up
the NetBackup console separately.