New offsite protection, granular restore capabilities, multi-product integration, and Windows Server 2008 support ensure rapid and reliable Windows system recovery.

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Feb. 19, 2008 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 8, the latest version of its complete and rapid Windows system recovery solution—now with flexible offsite protection and enhanced recovery capabilities, integration with Symantec security and systems management solutions, and certified support for Windows Server 2008. With disk-based Backup Exec System Recovery, organizations can recover from system loss or disasters in minutes, even to dissimilar hardware, virtual environments or in remote, unattended locations.

“Today’s mission-critical environments must be quickly recoverable in the event of a system failure or disaster to avoid the revenue and employee productivity losses that too often result from downtime,” said Pat Hanavan, vice president of product management, Symantec. “Backup Exec System Recovery 8 enables administrators to get their Windows systems back up and running fast so they can meet strict recovery time objectives with confidence and minimize the impact of system downtime.”

To enhance an organization’s disaster recovery efforts, Backup Exec System Recovery 8 now includes flexible offsite protection that enables administrators to automatically copy recovery points to a remote server using FTP or to an external hard drive or network share. A new Granular Restore Option enables organizations to recover Microsoft Exchange mailboxes, folders, messages, and attachments; individual Microsoft SharePoint documents; and individual files or folders in minutes from a single, multi-tab interface. In addition, Backup Exec System Recovery 8 also includes integration with Symantec’s ThreatCon global security alerting system to enable system recovery points to be captured immediately and automatically in the event of an elevated Internet ThreatCon level.

“Every hour of IT system downtime can represent revenue losses or other adverse effects on business. In fact, recent ESG Research reveals that 63 percent of organizations could tolerate no more than four hours of downtime,” said Lauren Whitehouse, analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group. “To minimize such costly business interruptions, organizations need solutions such as Symantec’s Backup Exec System Recovery that enable full system restoration in minutes—even to virtual, bare-metal or dissimilar hardware systems.”

Integration of Backup Exec System Recovery 8 with the Altiris management platform enables administrators to control backup tasks from a familiar interface and database framework. In addition, Backup Exec System Recovery 8 can now intelligently and uniquely communicate to external USB drives and run backup jobs to the given device, even if Windows changes the drive letter for the device.

“We pride ourselves on exceptional customer service, and ensuring the availability of our systems is essential to providing that service. In the past, Windows system recovery has been a time-consuming, manual process that could take days or even weeks, resulting in unnecessary downtime and loss of productivity,” said Curtis Kidd, information technology manager, Farmington Country Club. “Backup Exec System Recovery 8 eliminates these time consuming and tedious processes and enables us to restore entire systems in a fraction of the time of traditional methods – even to dissimilar hardware or virtual environments – allowing us to maintain the high level of service our members have come to expect.”

Also new with Backup Exec System Recovery 8 is logo-certified support for Windows Server 2008, including Restore Anyware technology for dissimilar hardware and physical-to-virtual restoration. Backup Exec System Recovery 8 leverages the power of virtualization for seamless physical to virtual (P2V) and virtual to physical (V2P) conversions to VMware® ESX Server, VMware Server, VMware Workstation and Microsoft Virtual Server disk formats.

Although Backup Exec System Recovery 8 is a standalone solution, it is complementary to Backup Exec for Windows Servers. Built on more than two decades of engineering, together Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver the ability to restore critical data and complete Windows systems in minutes.

Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 8 Services

Symantec Education Services offers a two-day, classroom technical training course for Backup Exec System Recovery 8 that provides a comprehensive overview of the product’s feature set. In addition, students will learn installation, administration and basic troubleshooting techniques as well as recommended best practices. Hands-on labs will be used to reinforce skills learned in the class.

A range of Enterprise Support Services offerings is also available to keep Backup Exec System Recovery up-to-date and delivering maximum value.