Symantec today introduced Veritas Cluster Server One (VCS One), a new high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) platform for next generation data centres. VCS One moves beyond traditional clustering enabling IT managers to implement advanced services including active/active DR, multi-tier business application HA and scale-out control - increasing uptime and decreasing capital (CAPEX) and operational costs (OPEX) for the business.

Veritas Cluster Server One first to market with solution architected for virtualised, scale-out environments running distributed applications

SYDNEY, Australia - Symantec Vision - 12 November 2008 - Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today introduced Veritas Cluster Server One (VCS One), a new high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) platform for next generation data centres. VCS One moves beyond traditional clustering enabling IT managers to implement advanced services including active/active DR, multi-tier business application HA and scale-out control - increasing uptime and decreasing capital (CAPEX) and operational costs (OPEX) for the business.

Traditional clustering solutions can be complex to deploy and manage for individual databases and applications. Yet next-generation data centres, with their need for virtualised, scalable and distributed environments, strain these traditional solutions past the breaking point. Next-generation data centres are leveraging server virtualization to create thousands of servers, demanding a massive increase in scalability. In addition, traditional clustering solutions complicate or even prevent the use of valuable virtualization features like live migration. Finally, maintaining only the availability of traditional back-end services such as databases is not enough. Instead, organisations require the availability of end-to-end business applications built on highly distributed, multi-tier application architectures.

Veritas Cluster Server One delivers a new, unique HA/DR architecture that not only directly addresses these issues, but also dramatically simplifies the deployment and ongoing management of HA/DR services. The VCS One architecture is client-server based and highly scalable, initially supporting up to 256 nodes per cluster. It is non-intrusive and outside the operating system kernel - facilitating deployment and upgrades. VCS One also has a simpler networking model and built-in resiliency against configuration changes that impact availability. VCS One is policy-driven, with priorities, scheduling and dependency management to automate tasks and increase operator efficiency. Finally, Veritas Cluster Server One has server virtualization abstraction and control to deliver a common HA/DR operating model across the various virtual platforms in an enterprise data centre.

Veritas Cluster Server One provides high availability and disaster recovery for the next-generation data centre with: One platform for virtual and physical environments; One platform for multi-tier and monolithic applications; and One platform for scale-out and scale-up control. VCS One is unique in its ability to deliver the following capabilities:

- Active/Active DR - Most DR sites dedicate spare, idle capacity to handle production site failure. VCS One combines its unique virtualization control with policies for application priority to minimise CAPEX by fully leveraging all available equipment at the DR site. VCS One ensures that the highest priority workloads remain available regardless of the outage scenario.

- Multi-Tier HA - The majority of business application downtime involves people and processes to coordinate end-to-end restarts, even after back-end databases are made highly available with traditional clustering solutions. VCS One policies for application dependencies minimise total downtime by coordinating restart relationships between distributed application components running on various operating systems and across physical and virtual platforms.

- Scale-Out Control - Typical data centres contain hundreds, even thousands, of applications across production, test and development, and edge tier, all routinely requiring start, stop and restart operations. VCS One minimises OPEX and resolution time by enabling front-line operators to quickly and easily handle these tasks, error-free, without requiring assistance from backline operations or systems administration. VCS One fully exploits live migration in virtualised environments to eliminate downtime where possible.