Veritas NetBackup Gets A Makeover

On Monday, Veritas Software announced what company executives describe as a major upgrade to its Veritas NetBackup family, which includes the NetBackup BusinesServer, DataCenter and Storage Migrator.

The flagship NetBackup DataCenter and BusinesServer Version 4.5, both of which use the same code base, are designed for midsize to large enterprises that need a single software solution to back up data in heterogeneous environments onto disk or tape.

Jerry Hoetger, Veritas' senior manager of product marketing, says some of the improvements to the DataCenter and BusinesServer include a new module for an advanced disaster recovery feature, which automates the preparation and execution processes, and ensures error-free recovery when a system goes down.

The software incorporates the Bare Metal Restore technology Veritas acquired when it purchased privately held The Kernal Group Inc. last January.

"A function that took six to eight hours manually to recreate a server can now be done in about an hour or hour and a half," says Hoetger. "It's a significant savings time."

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company also has simplified backup and recovery through its new NetBackup Vault Option. This feature automates a process that identifies which tapes should be stored offsite and prints a report that keeps track of the tapes. In addition, the vault feature creates backup copies in-line.

Hoetger says the company has also made backup and recovery for Oracle's databases easier with the creation of a wizard.

"Before, backup was very script-driven, which is a very error-prone process," he says. "Now we have a wizard, so rather than write a program for every Oracle database backup, IT managers can enter certain variables on the screen and hit the enter key."

NetBackup Storage Migrator for Unix Version 4.5--a tool that migrates infrequently used online data to off-line or near-line storage--now has new features such as ServPoint for NAS interoperability and support for Oracle Re-do Logs, which holds database information that has been changed because of a transaction, says Hoetger.

General availability for Veritas' upgraded NetBackup products is set for April. The product is in beta now, but will be available through resellers and integrators.