Cupertino, California-based Symantec Corp is preparing to launch the Norton Enterprise Backup, a module for its Norton Administrator for Networks 1.5 by the end of the month. Enterprise Backup can either stand alone or plug directly into an existing Norton Administrator. It is able to interleave tape devices, thereby maximising a network’s storage system, says the company. Using Enterprise Backup, network managers can simultaneously back up numerous servers, all to the same tape, something it claims its rivals’ products cannot do. Symantec adds that interleaving maximises the network’s storage devices and reduces the number of tape drivers a network needs. The program also has some built in fault tolerance: if a tape device is not available, the server can automatically re-route data to another, available device. Symantec says that hierarchical storage management capabilities will be included in the next version of the module; at the moment Enterprise Backup enables administrators to configure, on the client side, who has the right to store and where. So far there is no price. Norton Administrator and its plug-in modules are built around the Norton Enterprise Architecture. Modules, like Enterprise Backup, Norton AntiVirus and pcAnywhere, when plugged into Norton Administrator then appear on the graphical user interface as an icon and when activated all have the same look and feel. Version 1.5 of Norton Administrator for Networks was launched last October and the company is working on a version that will have the Windows95 user interface, and also a wide area network version. Microsoft Corp’s Systems Management Server Version 1.0 shipped a month after version 1.5 and Symantec, clearly worried at how this might eat into its customer base, has since then been analysing its product in comparison with Microsoft’s. Although admitting that Systems Management Server is only a version 1.0 release and so subsequent versions could give Symantec a run for its money, it concludes that Norton Administrator is easier to install, simpler to use and has greater flexibility, as well as running on a variety of systems. Superior attributes, it reckons, are its software licence metering capabilities that enable the network manager to know at any time which user is running what software; and the fact that the administrator can see each piece of hardware’s Internet Protocol Address, and the name of the person using it, from one screen.
