While at the Symantec/Altiris ManageFusion event in Orlando, I was able to speak with Steve Fairbanks, senior director of product management at Symantec. During the show, Fairbanks briefed me on a new version of Symantec's Backup Exec System Recovery 7.0 that offers integration with Altiris technology to help provide its customers with rapid Windows backup and recovery needed in today's IT environment. "By combi While at the Symantec/Altiris ManageFusion event in Orlando, I was able to speak with Steve Fairbanks, senior director of product management at Symantec. During the show, Fairbanks briefed me on a new version of Symantec’s Backup Exec System Recovery 7.0 that offers integration with Altiris technology to help provide its customers with rapid Windows backup and recovery needed in today’s IT environment.“By combining the power and flexibility of Altiris manageability with Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery 7.0, IT administrators have the best of both worlds at their fingertips – the leading systems management solution together with complete Windows system recovery,” said Fairbanks. “Through this integration we are automating business processes to protect our customers’ data and computing environments.”From the outside looking in, it seems as though the Symantec acquisition of Altiris is going quite well. For the past six months, Symantec has been integrating BESR 7.0 with Altiris Notification Server, allowing IT administrators to have a single, familiar management console from which to work. As a result, customers can perform an immediate backup of a single system, create backup policies to protect servers, desktops and laptops, or recover individual files and folders as well as entire systems to nearly any device, including virtual machines and dissimilar hardware. Symantec said the new integration also provides Altiris management customers with a unique ability to convert physical systems to virtual (P2V) and virtual back to physical (V2P) and perform granular recovery for Microsoft Exchange, and end-user file recovery capabilities via Google Desktop or Backup Exec Retrieve. The Backup Exec System Recovery Exchange Retrieve Option simplifies Exchange recovery, providing fast and easy recovery not only of the entire Exchange server but also of individual messages, attachments, folders and mailboxes. This latest announcement brings Symantec and Altiris further down the virtualization path, and brings yet another offering into the P2V market space. But because it is built on years of backup and recovery technology, P2V is just one small component in this product’s arsenal. As a volume based solution, it captures a recovery point of the entire Windows system (including operating system, applications, system settings, configurations and files) without impacting user productivity. The product also provides comprehensive reporting, status, backup job and overall system protection information in the Altiris configuration management database. Symantec and Altiris have been clear with their endpoint management strategy – with a goal of providing customers with the best solutions for their management needs. And this is just another example of how well the integration of the two companies is going. Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Integration Component for Altiris is planned to be available in early November 2007. Software Development