Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery

Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 8 is a complete, disk-based system recovery solution for Microsoft® Windows based servers, desktops, and laptops that allows businesses to recover from system loss or disasters in minutes, not hours or days—even to dissimilar hardware platforms, virtual environments, or in remote, unattended locations. From small businesses to larger Windows environments, Backup Exec System Recovery is the gold standard in complete Windows system recovery.

Key Features

Powerful Windows recovery capabilities (Server Edition, Desktop Edition, and Windows Small Business Server Edition)

Capture and protect the entire Windows system, including the operating system, applications, databases, all files, device drivers, profiles, settings, and registry, in one easy-to-manage recovery point—without disrupting user productivity or application usage.
Perform a full system restoration, even to bare-metal systems, in minutes—without the need to manually reinstall and reconfigure operating systems, applications, system settings, and preferences.
Symantec Recovery Disk auto-detects hardware and loads the appropriate drivers to boot the system, eliminating the need to manually build recovery floppy disks.
Customizable Symantec Recovery Disk automatically harvests system drivers not already included on the Symantec Recovery Disk and also allows administrators to add additional drivers for a customized recovery environment tailored to meet your unique hardware needs.
New! Offsite copy functionality enables you to automatically copy recovery points to a remote server using FTP or to an external hard drive or network share to enhance your disaster recovery efforts.
New! Integration with Symantec ThreatCon allows you to easily configure Backup Exec System Recovery to automatically run a backup when the Symantec ThreatCon level reaches or exceeds the level you specify.
Calendar View shows past, present, and future recovery points for each volume on the system and the protection level of each.
Google™ Desktop integration allows for familiar rapid search and retrieval of files and folders using a common Web-browser interface.
Dynamic CPU-based performance throttling improves performance on desktops and servers to utilize resources more efficiently while capturing a recovery point. Also included is support for dual- and quad-core systems.
New! Create recovery points for volumes up to 16 TB in size.
Scheduled recovery points help ensure systems are automatically backed up, allowing administrators to focus on other tasks.
Incremental recovery points can be scheduled as often as every 15 minutes if desired. Incremental recovery points save time and reduce disk storage requirements by capturing only the changes that were made since the last recovery point.
Customizable Event Driven Recovery Points allow users to specify which executable(s) or .com files they wish to trigger a new recovery point. This expands on the existing set of event triggers (prior to application installation, user log on or off, and configurable storage utilization changes).
File/Folder Backup and Recovery allows administrators to back up selective files and folders on a separate schedule from full system or volume recovery points. Users can also search and retrieve files from file/folder backups.
Manage backup destinations to optimize the hard drive space being used for storing backups.
Save recovery points to virtually any disk storage device, including direct-attached storage, NAS, SAN, USB drive, FireWire drive, CD, DVD, and so on.
New! USB drive identification—Backup Exec System Recovery intelligently and uniquely communicates to USB drives and will run backup jobs to the given device even if the drive letter changes.
Network bandwidth throttling enables administrators to generate recovery points to network locations without overloading the network.
Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) integration automatically sets databases that are VSS-aware into the “quiet” state so that recovery points can be captured without taking the databases offline.
Pre- and post-command processing allows administrators to customize additional actions they wish to take prior to capturing a recovery point, or after a recovery point has been captured.
Mount recovery points in Windows Explorer for immediate search, file recovery, or virus scanning.
Support for Microsoft Active Directory® allows a restored domain controller to be re-synchronized with its originating domain.
SNMP traps enable administrators to use existing network management consoles to report on the status of scheduled recovery points.
New! A Help and Support page includes one-click access to more information, including the product help system and the product User’s Guide.

Flexible restoration options (Symantec Restore Anyware™ technology)

Quickly and easily restore entire systems to dissimilar hardware to dramatically reduce recovery times and save on significant hardware investments.
Hot imaging combines with the ability to restore to different hardware platforms on the fly and breaks the barrier of incompatible storage controllers and hardware abstraction layers.
Restore Anyware also supports network interface controllers (NICs), ensuring that your NIC will function properly after a recovery point has been restored to dissimilar hardware.
Users can migrate their system to a new computer without requiring a new installation. This is key when upgrading hardware or repurposing systems to serve a different role.

Enhanced virtual support

Leverages the power of virtualization for seamless physical to virtual (P2V) and virtual to physical (V2P) conversions to VMware® ESX Server, VMware Server (formerly GSX Server), VMware Workstation, and Microsoft Virtual Server disk formats.
An easy-to-use virtual conversion wizard allows for quick conversion directly to VMDK or VHD files.
Simplifies testing and migrations—Perform preflight testing of patches, application installations, configuration changes or driver updates in a virtual environment before applying changes to production systems.

Easy remote system recovery (LightsOut Restore capabilities)

Recover systems in remote or inaccessible locations.
Eliminate in-person visits to perform a full bare-metal recovery by booting the system from its baseboard management controller. (Note that remote out-of-band power management capabilities are not provided with LightsOut Restore.)
The Symantec Recovery Disk is placed on the system hard drive, eliminating the need to access it from the CD.
Drivers can be manually added directly to the Symantec Recovery Disk files located in the boot volume subdirectory.

Enhanced Exchange, SharePoint, and file/folder recovery (New! Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Granular Restore Option)

New! From a single, multi-tab interface, quickly recover individual Exchange messages, SharePoint documents, or files and folders.
Recover critical Exchange mailboxes, folders, messages, or attachments in seconds—without the need for mailbox backups—and forward them directly through Microsoft Outlook® if desired. Now supports Exchange 2007!
New! Recover Microsoft SharePoint Server documents in seconds from a single system recovery point.
New! Restore files and folders in seconds with the ability to search multiple recovery points at the same time.

Scalable centralized management (Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Manager)

Manage the installations of Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery across your entire organization to simplify administration.
Monitor the current protection status of all managed systems across your entire organization with the at-aglance consolidated “Home Page” view. You can also access “Hot Spots” for quick problem analysis and view historical trends.
View real-time status of backup jobs with the ability to filter on computer name, job type, job name, and IP address; and examine errors to troubleshoot any problems identified.
Centralized access to computer details includes volume name, size, amount and percentage of space used, file system type, and last recovery point time and location.
Enable end-user recovery of files and folders without IT intervention with intuitive, Web-based search using Backup Exec Retrieve.
Search and recover data in Backup Exec for Windows Servers Continuous Protection Server environments as well as Backup Exec System Recovery environments with Universal Backup Exec Retrieve.
Define recovery point policies for groups of servers or desktops with similar requirements, then simply drag and drop to deploy the policies.
Generate predefined reports and export to .csv, .html, Excel® spreadsheet, or .xml formats for easy distribution to IT management.
Enable role-based administration for varying levels of administration.
Set default configuration settings for an individual system or groups of systems, including performance throttling, network bandwidth utilization, and notifications via email or SNMP traps.
Jump-start the creation of recovery points on remote systems when jobs are missed.
Supports centralized administration of pre-existing Backup Exec System Recovery 7.0 installations.
Includes the Backup Exec System Recovery Download Center, an automated Web site for client download and distribution.
New! Altiris Notification Server 6.5 customers can also manage system backup tasks using Backup Exec System Recovery and the Backup Exec System Recovery Integration Component for Altiris.

Key Benefits

Rapid, reliable recovery—even to dissimilar hardware and virtual environments

Supports Microsoft Windows Server® 2008
Recovers complete server, desktop, and laptop systems in minutes
Scales to meet your growing business needs

Flexible offsite protection and enhanced recovery capabilities

Enables offsite copy to FTP location or secondary disk drive
Granular recovery of Exchange, SharePoint®, or files and folders from a single interface
Simple, seamless conversion of physical systems to virtual environments

Innovative multi-product integration with marketleading technologies

Event-triggered backups based on Symantec ThreatCon security monitoring
Centrally manage system backups with Altiris Notification Server
Complements Symantec Backup Exec for Windows Servers