Symantec Advances Data Centre Automation Strategy

Symantec Advances Data Centre Automation Strategy with Veritas Server Foundation

New Server Foundation release to add advanced workflow automation and configuration drift management capabilities

Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced new enhancements to Veritas Server Foundation, a product family which improves application availability, automates common server management tasks, controls configuration changes and optimises server utilisation. The latest release of Server Foundation will address today’s data centre challenges and builds further on Symantec’s vision for comprehensive Data Centre Automation. New features include workflow automation and configuration control capabilities to help minimise downtime, automate and standardise execution of critical server management processes and provide increased visibility across the data centre.

Data centres have experienced a dramatic increase in complexity due to the growing number of servers, increase in multi-tier application deployments and the proliferation of virtualised environments. While systems and information management requirements continue to grow, tight resource constraints hold IT budgets and headcount flat, resulting in the need to automate critical IT processes that must be performed to maintain optimal service levels and availability across the data centre.

The Server Foundation suite includes four products which discover in detail what is running on all servers in the data centre, actively manage and administer those servers and ensure that mission-critical applications running on those servers are available. Veritas Cluster Server is the market-leading cross-platform clustering solution1 for high availability and disaster recovery. Veritas Configuration Manager provides holistic application discovery, accurate dependency mapping and real-time change tracking. Veritas Provisioning Manager automates the deployment and configuration of servers and applications including cross-platform patch management. Veritas Application Director provides runtime control of applications and virtual machines.

“Today’s data centre managers are embracing automation to maximise agility and control of their IT operations,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president, Server Foundation product group, Symantec. “With sophisticated workflow and expanded configuration control capabilities, the latest release of Server Foundation addresses the challenges of increased complexity across the data centre and represents a step forward in delivering on our vision for comprehensive data centre automation.”

New Workflow Engine Streamlines Critical Data Centre Processes and Minimises Planned Downtime

Operating today’s data centres requires data centre managers to execute complex processes consistently and efficiently across multiple IT groups. These processes can range in scope from basic tasks like application deployments to full Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) processes such as change or release management. These complexity and coordination challenges can result in errors that entail costly re-work, delays and outages caused by missed organisational handoffs, longer maintenance windows and an inability to define or enforce IT policies consistently across the data centre.

Server Foundation’s new workflow engine addresses these challenges by coordinating notifications and providing user input between IT groups, enabling users to define and enforce IT standards while driving task automation at the infrastructure level. All three layers of automation are easily controlled using a workflow modeler with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface.

While other tools focus on runbook automation (which automates action but is not flexible enough to accept user input) or process automation (which coordinates handoffs, but cannot reach into the infrastructure to do true task automation), Server Foundation enables both end user orchestration and infrastructure automation. Furthermore, it does this with deep automation capabilities not only at the server layer, but at the storage layer through integration with Veritas Command Central Storage.

“Data centres have become more complex, difficult to manage and challenging to control. Yet, service level expectations continue to rise even as IT budgets remain relatively flat,” said Brian Babineau, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. “Clearly, next-generation data centres require management tools that reduce complexity, ensure availability and improve efficiency and productivity without adding significant cost. Symantec is providing organisations the opportunity to take the next step in improving data centre management with its latest release of Veritas Server Foundation.”

New Configuration Control Capabilities Improve Application Availability

Changes deployed to the IT environment are a common cause of downtime in data centre environments. These changes cause downtime due to configuration drift, which can happen in one of the following three ways. The first common scenario occurs when changes are deployed to production environments. If the changes are not reapplied to the pre-production environment, the testing environment becomes invalid. Another example is when changes such as patches are not deployed consistently across clustered environments, leading to unreliable failovers. Finally, configuration inconsistencies between production and disaster recovery environments can often render the environment unable to function effectively when needed.

Administrators wrestle with configuration drift challenges across all these scenarios because they lack deep visibility into such configuration inconsistencies. Server Foundation’s new configuration management capabilities expand visibility, providing automatic discovery of specific detailed application parameters. The new Consistency Check capability provides the flexibility to track and customise the level of information across different servers, applications or environments as they need to – from entire applications or file systems down to individual configuration parameters. When combined with Server Foundation’s existing impact analysis and real-time change tracking capabilities, these new features provide administrators a complete range of tools to prevent downtime and rapidly identify the changes that caused downtime.

Availability

The new Server Foundation enhancements are scheduled to be available in July 2007 through Symantec’s direct sales force, enterprise VAR channel, and system integrators. For more information, visit Symantec at www.symantec.com.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in infrastructure software, enabling businesses and consumers to have confidence in a connected world. The company helps customers protect their infrastructure, information and interactions by delivering software and services that address risks to security, availability, compliance and performance. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Symantec has operations in 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

1. IDC, Worldwide Clustering and Availability Software 2005 Vendor Shares, Doc #203676, October, 2006

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