VERITAS Software unveils new centralised administration solution for Windows NT/2000

VERITAS Software Corporation has introduced VERITAS Backup Exec Network Storage Executive(NSE), a storage management tool designed to enhance the functionality of VERITAS Backup Exec for Windows NT/2000.

By leveraging the strengths of Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and the Microsoft Management Console, VERITAS Backup Exec NSE unifies multiple independent VERITAS Backup Exec for Windows NT/2000 servers to provide one central point of administration and control.

"Enhancing VERITAS Backup Exec for Windows NT/2000 with VERITAS Backup Exec NSE gives corporations an easy path from server-based departmental backup to fully automated, policy-driven storage management," says Nick van Noordwyk, regional manager, Middle East and Africa at VERITAS Software SA.

VERITAS Backup Exec NSE increases efficiency and reduces management costs by centralising the administration of backup, restore and device operations, thus eliminating the need to manage each backup server separately. VERITAS Backup Exec NSE`s intuitive user interface snaps into the Microsoft Management Console. Wizards walk new users through the most common tasks.

For larger environments, policy-based management offers a scalable approach to efficiently manage hundreds of network resources and thousands of jobs. Backup policies improve the reliability and integrity of data protection by enabling administrators to ensure consistency and reduce the potential for human error. Once a backup policy has been defined, VERITAS Backup Exec NSE auto-creates the backup jobs. Resource priorities allow VERITAS Backup Exec NSE to intelligently dispatch jobs to back up servers in the order of importance, ensuring that the user-defined "most important" data is backed up first. VERITAS Backup Exec software can be push installed, enabling administrators to easily deploy new backup servers for future expansion.

By pooling together multiple servers, more flexible and fault-tolerant backup systems are created. Policies are targeted to device pools and are logically broken down by volume or resource and load balanced across backup servers optimising device utilisation. VERITAS Backup Exec NSE offers the ability to retry jobs in the event of failure.

Reports display job status, device, media, performance or configuration information consolidated across all servers. These reports enable administrators to spot trends, project growth, optimise performance and track service levels. A centralised catalogue eases the restoration of data from any backup server or device, which does not have to be the server or device that performed the original backup.