More Data Protection For SQL ServerMore Data Protection For SQL Server

Veritas Software Corp. and Microsoft last week disclosed plans to deliver software by next year's second quarter designed to make it easier to implement and maintain Microsoft's SQL Server database and data used by the application.

Veritas, a $1.5 billion storage software company, already provides much of the high-availability functionality to Microsoft products. Veritas Volume Manager, Veritas Backup Exec, and Veritas Storage Migrator are included in the Windows 2000 operating system.

The Basic Availability package of data-protection software for Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000 is aimed at customers with up to 400 Gbytes of data and will include Veritas Backup Exec or NetBackup and Veritas Volume Manager. The Enhanced Availability suite, for customers with up to 1 terabyte of data, will include the basic package plus Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Veritas SANPoint Direct. The Advanced Availability suite, for those with more than 1 terabyte of data, adds Windows 2000 Datacenter Server to the enhanced package.

The vendors are partnering to make the Windows products and the storage they use easier to manage, says Aberdeen Group analyst Dan Tanner. "The vendors want support needed as little as possible," Tanner says. "They want to get to the Maytag repairman level: It should work so well, the storage administrator gets lonely." That would please Robert Horsley, executive director at Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, P.C., a corporate immigration law firm in Santa Clara, Calif., that uses Veritas products for data backup and recovery. The firm specializes in building extranets that let foreign nationals track their immigration cases, and is considering moving its 22 worldwide offices to SQL Server. He likes the idea that the vendors are developing a closer partnership. "If data isn't available, panic sets in that something's wrong with their case," Horsley says of his firm's clients. "Veritas means confidence that data is available."