Symantec Corp. today announced the general availability of Veritas Cluster Server 5.0 for VMware ESX, an enterprise-class high availability and disaster recovery solution for business-critical virtual environments. Cluster Server for VMware ESX provides advanced monitoring capabilities for applications running inside virtual machines and automates failover across local and remote sites in the event of disasters to provide a higher level of application availability than existing manual recovery methods.

Optimal for improving server resource utilization across data centers, Cluster Server for VMware helps prevent downtime associated with application, virtual machine, network link, or server failures. In addition, Cluster Server for VMware helps ensure availability in a single data center, as well as multiple data centers across a campus, metropolitan or wide area network (WAN). Cluster Server is a key component of Veritas Server Foundation, a comprehensive server and application management solution for data center automation (DCA) which helps IT organizations meet service level expectations and control operating costs in complex and changing environments.

Cluster Server for VMware is complementary to Symantec's clustering solutions for Windows, Linux, and UNIX platforms. Symantec is the market leader in cross-platform server clustering, according to the 2006 edition of the IDC Worldwide Clustering and Availability Software report.

According to Brian Babineau, Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group, "Customers require disaster recovery solutions that can expedite business continuity operations. Veritas Cluster Server for VMware ESX allows enterprises to proactively ensure the high availability of mission-critical applications running in virtual environments. For IT organizations striving to meet stringent internal service level agreements, Cluster Server for VMware ESX can help minimize application downtime to just moments per year."

Enterprise-Class High Availability and Disaster Recovery for Physical and Virtual Environments

Cluster Server for VMware ESX provides high availability and disaster recovery for both physical and virtual servers. By simplifying and automating remote failover for VMware virtual server environments, Cluster Server for VMware ESX provides added protection against virtual machine or application failures, including:

• Server, application and resource monitoring, which provides a higher level of availability;
• Automatic recovery from application, network storage, virtual resource, virtual server, and physical server failures;
• Centralized management of virtual and physical clustered servers from a single console;
• Comprehensive protection from wide area disasters by integrating disaster recovery plan verification tools, remote application failover features and real-time data replication to enable organizations to test disaster recovery without disrupting production environments.

"Customers who are building out virtual server farms look to Symantec for the same disaster recovery capabilities they have relied on to maximize availability in traditional server environments," said Dan Lamorena, senior manager of product marketing for Symantec's Data Center Management Group. "Veritas Cluster Server for VMware ESX helps organizations reduce the complexity of managing server and application real estate to ensure availability of business-critical applications."

Price and Availability

Veritas Cluster Server for VMware ESX is available immediately through Symantec's direct sales force, enterprise VAR channel, system integrators, and select OEM partners. Suggested pricing for Cluster Server for VMware ESX starts at $1,995 per server.