Veritas Software on Monday continued its sweeping integration of
the technology assets of Precise Software with the release of
software designed to manage Microsoft Windows systems more easily.
The Mountain View, Calif. vendor moved to acquire storage resource
management provider Precise last December, along with server provisioning
company Jareva Technologies as part of its plan to morph into a utility
computing provider.
Since that time, the company has been busy integrating
software from those companies into its own product line, offering retooling
them, and offering them side-by-side with its homegrown products.
StorageCentral 5.2 contains new quota and file management capabilities to
support Windows Server 2003 and the new Windows Storage Server 2003,
launched last month.
It aims to free up disk space by making sure that only business-oriented
files are being stored on corporate networks.
Marty Ward, director of product marketing at Veritas, discussed the allure
of StorageCentral 5.2. For example, he told internetnews.com, some
research firms have conducted studies in which employees have admitted to
downloading MP3s, or even pornographic files at work. StorageCentral 5.2
weeds out those non work-related files so a systems administrator doesn’t
have to. StorageCentral uses quota management and file blocking to do this
for Windows platforms, and also boosts server availability.
Quota management sets file limits for a user, sending them alerts when he or
she is about to run out of storage. A more proactive feature, file-blocking
screens files before they come into the e-mail client, and features an
attachment prevention mechanism that can stop a virus before it has the
opportunity to deliver a harmful payload. StorageCentral also boasts
reporting capabilities to give users the skinny on what kind of files they
have, Ward said.
Ward also said there is a light edition available for Windows Storage Server
2003 that has basic quota management and file blocking, but no reporting
features. Moreover, StorageCentral now offers user-based quota management
for Network Appliance filer products, granting an extra level of
granularity.
Microsoft has enjoyed a great deal of buzz about its new Windows Storage
Server 2003 since its launch last month, which included endorsements from
several top-tier systems vendors, including EMC, HP, and of course, Veritas.
Microsoft software is the market leader in providing software for
network-attached storage (NAS) systems.
In order to make utility computing possible via SRM software, Veritas also
offers SANPoint Control, which enables policy-driven management of the
storage infrastructure and Storage Reporter, which provides analysis of
storage usage across heterogeneous enterprise environments and helps
projects future storage needs.
Veritas also announced an expanded reseller program to enable commercial
distribution of StorageCentral software. StorageCentral 5.2 is available
immediately, starting at $1,395 per server.
Veritas Crafts SRM Software for Windows
