AvailabilityGuard V6.3 by Continuity Software

Continuity Software, Inc. is enabling IT professionals, business line managers and compliance officers to extend their datacenter service resiliency and set in motion operational programs, with the launch of AvailabilityGuard Software version 6.3.

Featuring expedited deployment, expanded risk detection, and deeper analytics, it delivers greater control and data protection, as well as compliance with internal IT governance and external regulations.

Enhancements include:

• SLA Policy / Software SLA Add-ons – Enables users to specify standards for software products and/or minimal version; also includes out-of-the-box support for Symantec NetBackup, EMC Legato, CommVault, IBM Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM), and CA ARCServe

• Enhanced SAN Fabric Support – What-if reports, HP Virtual Connect

• Extended Platform Support – Isilon (NAS), and DataDomain

• Enhanced Risk Detection – numerous risk signatures

• Granular Role and Privilege Support – Role profiles provide fine-grained right-based and privilege-based access control, allowing managers, decision makers and other non-technical users to subscribe to the exact views they need with the most appropriate privilege level

• Deeper Active Directory Integration – Supporting full user authorization and role configuration

• Enhanced Configuration Wizard – Streamlining setup even further with more granular control

The findings of the 2013 Financial Services Availability Benchmark study (registration required) conducted by Continuity revealed that while financial services organizations are obligated to establish service availability plans, they are actually among the worst performing in regards to meeting these goals. 41% of those surveyed acknowledged that they did not meet their service availability goals for mission-critical systems. Likewise, the responses from the company’s 2013 Enterprise Service Availability and BC Benchmark study (registration required) indicated that much like financial services, a range of other industries also have commendable service availability goals for systems. Yet similarly, 32% of those surveyed did not meet their goals.

“Historically, IT professionals have agreed that a resilient datacenter could be achieved with the right technology and techniques, a.k.a. best practices. The belief was that when you understood and endeavored to employ these in your datacenter the question of resiliency could be answered, without first experiencing a catastrophic failure. Unfortunately, recent history has proven otherwise,” said Marc Staimer, founder and president, Dragon Slayer Consulting. “Even the best technology and intentions are destined for failure, if they remain untested.” He continued, “I would therefore recommend to anyone that wishes to safeguard their organization’s service availability and BC strategy to check out AvailabilityGuard.“

“AvailabilityGuard v6.3 is the direct result of feedback we have received from countless IT professionals and compliance officers seeking to build service resiliency management programs and drive operational excellence,” said Doron Pinhas, CTO, Continuity. “The AvailabilityGuard enhancements are uniquely designed to benefit professionals across both technical and non-technical roles. They enable faster and easier deployment, deeper and broader understanding, and greater management control. The bottom-line is that AvailabilityGuard v6.3 will enable more efficient and effective compliance with internal IT standards and external regulations.“

AvailabilityGuard v6.3 is available.