Symantec DR as a Service on Windows Azure

Symantec Corp. will extend its Storage Foundation HA for Windows and Veritas Volume Replicator DR software solution to the Windows Azure cloud platform.

The solution will allow organizations to recover business critical applications and their associated data in Windows Azure in the event of a local failure or site disaster. It will expand the ability of Symantec’s existing BC solutions for Microsoft Corp., providing on-premise-to-cloud DR as a service (DRaaS).

Fast and Cost Effective DR to Cloud
Organizations are increasingly demanding better protection and more recovery options, including leveraging the public cloud for DR protection.

According to IDC’s 2011 BC Market Analysis, "Advancements in replication, clustering and server virtualization software have opened the door to a more flexible approach to those architecting BC schemes. Given the increased need for business uptime and corporate reliance on information technology… the role of public clouds within the BC market will surely increases."

As organizations deal with downtime due to disasters, storage failures, network issues, maintenance or power outages, they need a solution that provides fast recovery to keep their applications and data available to users.

Flexible Protection for Business Critical Applications
DRaaS solution with Windows Azure will go beyond today’s more common backup to and recovery from the cloud offerings. Storage Foundation HA and Veritas Volume Replicator HA and DR technology will enable organizations to not just protect their data but protect their applications as well. With this solution, IT organizations will benefit by realizing improved recovery time and recovery point objectives for business critical applications in the event of an on-premise outage. Not only will the solution ensure real-time replication of critical application data, but it will also provide end-to-end recovery coordination from the data all the way up through the application. IT organizations can avoid having to manage a DR site themselves and benefit from the cloud services provided by Windows Azure.

Technology from Symantec’s market Veritas Storage Foundation HA for Windows and Veritas Volume Replicator products will form the basis for the solution. With this announcement, Symantec continues to expand its availability and DR interoperability with Microsoft solutions, which includes Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server Hyper-V, and now Windows Azure.

More information on the new solution will be made available at a later date.

"In this economy, customers see cloud computing as a new option for flexible, cost-effective computing," said Jean S. Bozman, research VP, IDC. "Many organizations have been looking for a way to automate the recovery of production data – and to keep important applications running – in the event of an outage that has the potential to disrupt business for hours. Leveraging cloud computing as a DR target addresses BC needs for organizations that cannot afford a secondary site or at-a-distance failovers for mission-critical, virtualized workloads."

"Windows Azure is designed to provide resilience and availability," said Walid Abu-Hadba, corporate VP, developer and platform evangelism at Microsoft. "Symantec’s service aims to extend the built-in reliability of Windows Azure and help customers recover on-premises applications and data with a DR and BC solution utilizing complementary technology from both Symantec and Microsoft."

"Windows Azure is growing rapidly as a platform, and we are seeing many of our customers utilizing it as part of a new delivery model for computing resources," said Deepak Mohan, SVP, Storage and Availability Management Group, Symantec. "With Symantec’s proven HA technology, and Microsoft’s cloud platform, organizations can rest assured that their business will keep running in cases of disasters and outages."