Symantec NetBackup 7.5 “by Up to 100 Times” Faster

Symantec Corp. announced NetBackup 7.5 to help enterprise organizations overcome their data protection challenges.

The current approach to backup modernization offered by other vendors is broken. Data growth has been exponential while backup performance gains thus far have been incremental. At the same time, backup teams are frustrated with missed backup windows and non-integrated solutions for physical and virtual backups, deduplication and snapshots. Ultimately, organizations face a situation where recovery, the end goal of why backups exist, is complex and expensive.  

Symantec is introducing NetBackup 7.5 with new options, including NetBackup Accelerator to speed backups by up to 100 times while delivering Instant Full Recovery capability, NetBackup Replication Director to integrate NetApp Snapshots with backup, and NetBackup Search to allow simple search and recovery of backup data and selective legal hold. Unlike other backup technology that relies on the IT team to integrate multiple disparate backup solutions, NetBackup is available as a single integrated appliance for the data center, remote office and virtual environments, providing customers with simplified deployment and operations.

Symantec is also announcing an expanded partnership with NetApp to integrate with NetBackup Replication Director, enabling customers to unify Snapshot and backup management, and remove the cost and risk associated with multiple backup and recovery tools. Replication Director enables organizations to reduce costs and complexity by recovering and managing backup and replicated Snapshots from a single, NetBackup management console.

"Just as 911 is the single point of contact for police, fire or medical emergency support, NetBackup is the single point of recovery for tape, disk, physical, virtual, snapshot or cloud backups," said Simon Jelley, senior director, Information Management Group, Symantec. "Symantec NetBackup 7.5 will speed backups by up to 100 times, unify snapshots and backup, and unite physical and virtual protection. The days of running seven different backup solutions are numbered, and the task of making it all work together no longer falls on the backup administrator."
 
NetBackup 7.5 will deliver the following benefits:

• Break the Backup Window with 100 Times Faster Backups: According to a recent Symantec survey of 1,425 enterprises, 72 percent of respondents stated that they would switch backup products if backup speeds doubled. NetBackup Accelerator delivers 100 times faster backup with Instant Full Recovery through a single click in NetBackup’s management console. This gives backup administrators the speed of incremental backups with the benefits of a full backup without the overhead and cost at recovery time.
• Unify Snapshots and Backup: NetBackup 7.5 includes NetBackup Replication Director to centralize management and speed the recovery of hundreds of replicated Snapshots. Replication Director leverages NetBackup’s 10 years of experience with snapshots and the advanced API in Symantec’s popular OpenStorage (OST) interface that can integrate with NetApp Snapshots and replication (SnapVault and SnapMirror) for faster backup and recovery. Replication Director gives organizations the speed of Snapshots with the centralized management and recovery capabilities of NetBackup.  
• Fight Infinite Retention: Many businesses have legal risk and cost exposure resulting from over retention of backup tapes. NetBackup Search ends infinite retention by helping organizations identify what information to archive and what to delete based on relevance to legal discovery or compliance cases. This reduces the time and cost IT spends on eDiscovery and eliminates the need to keep backups forever.
• One Product for Any Recovery: Survey results showed that the average enterprise is running seven different backup solutions, which creates operational complexity. NetBackup is the single point of control for backup, deduplication and recovery whether from tape, disk, virtual machines, physical machines or cloud. Symantec integrates all of these solutions on a single NetBackup appliance. To reduce capital expenses NetBackup has added support for cloud storage from AT&T, Amazon Web Services and Rackspace, in addition to its existing partnership with Nirvanix. Enhanced WAN optimization and encryption in NetBackup enable these partners to deliver cloud storage for backup as a cost effective alternative to tape.
• Unite Virtual and Physical with V-Ray: NetBackup 7.5 powered by Symantec V-Ray offers X-Ray like visibility into VMware VMDK files and Hyper-V VHD files to deliver true granular recovery without copying or mounting the data. Patent-pending V-Ray technology also enables deduplication across physical and virtual environments from a single solution. NetBackup’s Virtual Machine Intelligent Policy (VIP) automatically detects and protects new, moved or cloned virtual machines and load balances backups for performance.   
• Stop Putting Tapes on Trucks: NetBackup 7.5 simplifies disaster recovery by providing Auto Image Replication (AIR). It automates backup and replication between multiple NetBackup domains or locations and allows customers to eliminate volumes of redundant data and prioritize files that are sent over the network for disaster recovery purposes. AIR also removes the need to rely on physical movement of backup images via tape and eliminates the risk of disaster recovery not being possible due to human error. This offers an advantage over traditional tape-based off-site storage in which backups must be duplicated to tapes that are then shipped to the disaster recovery site, a time consuming and costly activity with the added risk that tapes could be lost or stolen in transit.

Availability
Symantec NetBackup 7.5 will be available for purchase in spring 2012 through Symantec’s worldwide network of value-added authorized resellers, distributors and systems integrators or directly.

"NetApp and Symantec are focused on collaborating to help customers manage growing data volumes, drive greater efficiencies and reduce overall costs," said Tim Russell, vice president, Data Lifecycle Ecosystem Group, NetApp, Inc. "Customers are increasingly turning to NetApp Snapshots and replication for faster backup and recovery and meet demanding business requirements. The expanded integration is a major step in enabling customers to simplify management of Snapshots, replication, backup and recovery and maximize their investments in NetBackup and NetApp storage systems."  

"Organizations are running out of space to store information from both a budget and physical data center perspective. Rackspace’s partnership with Symantec NetBackup will allow customers to move backup data into the cloud for a less expensive tier of storage to address data growth in an effective way," said Chris Cochran, vice president of strategy, Rackspace, US Inc.