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Symantec Cloud Services Transform Data Centre Operations Through Proactive Management
Symantec today announced Veritas Operations Services, a new cloud computing-based online services platform to help organisations identify hidden risks in their data centres – improving service availability and increasing productivity of the operations staff. Veritas Installation Assessment and Veritas Storage Foundation Health Check are the first two services immediately available, providing an alternative to traditional reactive operations models and enabling IT organisations to perform prioritised, preventative maintenance using the latest known good configurations, best practices and data centre risks

Veritas Operations Services identifies hidden data centre risks and drives productivity and availability

SYDNEY, Australia – 20 November 2008 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced Veritas Operations Services, a new cloud computing-based online services platform to help organisations identify hidden risks in their data centres – improving service availability and increasing productivity of the operations staff. Veritas Installation Assessment and Veritas Storage Foundation Health Check are the first two services immediately available, providing an alternative to traditional reactive operations models and enabling IT organisations to perform prioritised, preventative maintenance using the latest known good configurations, best practices and data centre risks. Symantec's new Operations Services proactively manages the storage and server environment to deliver rapid time to value and expands the Symantec portfolio to help organisations secure and manage their information.

"Until now, most data centre operators have been in break-fix mode," said Rob Soderbery, senior vice president of the Storage and Availability Management Group, Symantec. "With Veritas Operations Services, Symantec delivers a visionary management model that will find risks before they strike and guide remediation to ensure speedy intervention. We chose a cloud services model because we can deliver new risk profiles more quickly and our customers can realise value almost effortlessly."

Delivered via a cloud computing model, Symantec's Operations Services tracks best practices, optimal configurations, hardware compatibility lists and software compatibility lists for Storage Foundation, Veritas Cluster Server, leading operating systems and array-based software. A collection of web-based services use this intelligence to identify data centre risks and improve productivity of operations teams as they try to deal with the new data center architectures and scale. Alerts include steps for guided remediation to speed and simplify resolution.

The Installation Assessment Service, the first of several planned Symantec offerings, delivers an intuitive, web-based validation of the complex configurations in the server and storage infrastructure. This proactive approach simplifies version upgrades and new installations by validating the complete stack prior to starting the installation process. Key features include:

Automated, agentless, data collection by the Installation Assessment Service validates server and storage configurations prior to product installation or upgrade to determine the readiness of infrastructure.
Detailed reporting indicating pass, fail, or warning of critical configuration variables with web-based hyperlinks directly to required patches and relevant documentation.
Proactive patch notification service for available patches related to the unique server and storage configuration in the environment.
Agentless assessment that can run on a single server or across multiple servers and multiple operating systems without requiring the installation of Storage Foundation or Cluster Server.

Other services currently available include a Storage Foundation Health Check, which identifies configuration errors that can result in downtime, performance issues and poor resource utilisation. The Storage Foundation Health Check Service draws upon the experience of more than 15 years of data centre deployments in the world's most mission-critical applications.

"With the launch of Veritas Operations Services, Symantec is delivering a valuable cloud service offering to its data centre customers," said Bob Laliberte, analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "It's those very large, complex environments with lots of moves, adds and changes that will benefit the most by leveraging a service that proactively validates configurations. However, any customer with broad deployments of Storage Foundation and Cluster Server should strongly consider using Operations Services today – it will help them improve availability, reduce complexity and reduce costs."

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organisations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Media Contacts:

Debbie Sassine

Symantec

+61 2 8220 7158

debbie_sassine@symantec.com

Angela Coombes

Max Australia

9954 3492

Angela.coombes@maxaustralia.com.au

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Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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