Release: Symantec Backup Exec 2014

Earlier this month Symantec released edition 2014 of its comprehensive backup suite: Backup Exec.

What distinguishes this latest version from the previous is the effort that Symantec has invested in the integration of the product into the virtualized infrastructures, leveraging technologies like Microsoft VSS and VMware’s VADP,  in order to provide a unified solution able to cover also the physical machines still in production in many datacenters.

The product also supports multi-hypervisor environments allowing the management of vCenter and Hyper-V hosts together in the same console.

Symantec Backup Exec 2014 also integrates V2P (virtual to physical) and P2V (physical to virtual) features, this last one in particular turns it into a good candidate as a consolidation tool that could fit well for the SMB.

The key features of this release can be resumed as follows:

  • Support for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2
  • Advanced backup jobs monitoring
  • Optimized performance for backup and deduplication

As with the previous releases you can add several application-specific agents to increase the backup granularity with Exchange, Active Directory, SQL Server, Sharpoint, etc.

Tomorrow, June 17, Symantec will run a webcast showing all the new features included in this release and you can also access a 60-day trial here.