Symantec Announces Backup Exec System Recovery 8

Symantec Corp. announced Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 8, the
latest version of its complete and rapid Windows system recovery
solution—now with flexible offsite protection and enhanced recovery
capabilities, integration with Symantec security and systems management
solutions, and certified support for Windows Server 2008. With
disk-based Backup Exec System Recovery, organizations can recover from
system loss or disasters in minutes, even to dissimilar hardware,
virtual environments or in remote, unattended locations.

“Today’s mission-critical environments must be quickly recoverable
in the event of a system failure or disaster to avoid the revenue and
employee productivity losses that too often result from downtime,” said
Pat Hanavan, vice president of product management, Symantec. “Backup
Exec System Recovery 8 enables administrators to get their Windows
systems back up and running fast so they can meet strict recovery time
objectives with confidence and minimize the impact of system downtime.”

To enhance an organization’s disaster recovery efforts, Backup Exec
System Recovery 8 now includes flexible offsite protection that enables
administrators to automatically copy recovery points to a remote server
using FTP or to an external hard drive or network share. A new Granular
Restore Option enables organizations to recover Microsoft Exchange
mailboxes, folders, messages, and attachments; individual Microsoft
SharePoint documents; and individual files or folders in minutes from a
single, multi-tab interface. In addition, Backup Exec System Recovery 8
also includes integration with Symantec’s ThreatCon global security
alerting system to enable system recovery points to be captured
immediately and automatically in the event of an elevated Internet
ThreatCon level.

“Every hour of IT system downtime can represent revenue losses or
other adverse effects on business. In fact, recent ESG Research reveals
that 63 percent of organizations could tolerate no more than four hours
of downtime,” said Lauren Whitehouse, analyst for Enterprise Strategy
Group. “To minimize such costly business interruptions, organizations
need solutions such as Symantec’s Backup Exec System Recovery that
enable full system restoration in minutes—even to virtual, bare-metal
or dissimilar hardware systems.”

Integration of Backup Exec System Recovery 8 with the Altiris
management platform enables administrators to control backup tasks from
a familiar interface and database framework. In addition, Backup Exec
System Recovery 8 can now intelligently and uniquely communicate to
external USB drives and run backup jobs to the given device, even if
Windows changes the drive letter for the device.

“We pride ourselves on exceptional customer service, and ensuring
the availability of our systems is essential to providing that service.
In the past, Windows system recovery has been a time-consuming, manual
process that could take days or even weeks, resulting in unnecessary
downtime and loss of productivity,” said Curtis Kidd, information
technology manager, Farmington Country Club. “Backup Exec System
Recovery 8 eliminates these time consuming and tedious processes and
enables us to restore entire systems in a fraction of the time of
traditional methods – even to dissimilar hardware or virtual
environments – allowing us to maintain the high level of service our
members have come to expect.”

Also new with Backup Exec System Recovery 8 is logo-certified
support for Windows Server 2008, including Restore Anyware technology
for dissimilar hardware and physical-to-virtual restoration. Backup
Exec System Recovery 8 leverages the power of virtualization for
seamless physical to virtual (P2V) and virtual to physical (V2P)
conversions to VMware ESX Server, VMware Server, VMware Workstation
and Microsoft Virtual Server disk formats.

Although Backup Exec System Recovery 8 is a standalone solution, it
is complementary to Backup Exec for Windows Servers. Built on more than
two decades of engineering, together Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec
System Recovery 8 deliver the ability to restore critical data and
complete Windows systems in minutes.

Estimated pricing for Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 8 starts
at U.S.$1,095 per server and $69 per workstation.
 

Symantec Corp.