Enterprise software vendor Symantec has today launched new versions of its Backup Exec family of products. Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 are both certified and optimised for Windows Server 2008 (WS 2008), which officially launches next week.

The main new features in the upgraded packages, besides WS 2008 support, is integration with other Symantec systems. Both Exec 12 and Exec System Recovery 8 integrate with Symantec's ThreatCon global security alerting system. Exec 12 also integrates with Enterprise Vault and Endpoint Protection, while Exec System Recovery 8 integrates with the Symantec's infrastructure framework manager, Altiris Notification Server.

Symantec's European product marketing manager Martin Warren said, "We're certified for all the different variants of WS 2008, but although it's a Windows solution running on a Windows platform, we do support Unix and Linux boxes." Backup Exec 12 also supports Macintosh systems, Lotus Domino servers, IBM N series devices and LTO-4 tape drives.

Symantec's data center and product management vice president Pat Hanavan, added, "Microsoft raised the bar for certifying backup products and said that they would no longer endorse systems that didn't backup a 'live' file system. They mandated that we do snapshot-based backups of the file system. The advantage is that all open files are protected as well."

Backup Exec can now be configured to track Symantec's ThreatCon system through Symantec Endpoint Integration. IT managers can set Backup Exec to trigger a backup in the event of ThreatCon moving to elevated threat levels. " You don't set it for every job in your environment, just the critical applications, data and systems," added Hanavan.

Backup Exec System Recovery 8 can be used to recover completely dissimilar hardware and also recover to a virtual server. "We can rapidly recover and entire system in the event of problems, and we also have a plug-in for Altiris Notification Server that allows IT managers to manage Backup Exec products through the Altiris console," said Hanavan.

Both packages are available now, Backup Exec 12 starts at £510 + VAT, whilst Backup Exec System Recovery 8 starts at £560 per server and £35 per workstation.