This is a great site, funny but also dead on about the reasons you should take backup very seriously.

The Tao of Backup

Disclaimer: Buried deep down in the site there is a link to non-Symantec software; obviously the choice is yours but I thought the content was too neat not to pass on!

If I could pinpoint one of the most discussed areas with opportunity for improvement in Symantec Online Backup, it would generally be identified as “status and reporting” on backups and restores. I’d like to give a little background on the design goals, the state of the union today, and some things we are working on for the near future.

Background

When we were building Online Backup, one of the goals we decided on from the beginning was that it would be a “Set it and forget it” type of service. The continuous backup technology (expect a post on this in the future) is designed to do the following:

• If a file is “available” to the backup agent (”BA”) for backup immediately after we see it was changed, then it is inspected and the new/changed bytes are uploaded immediately (or placed in queue)
• If a file is “not available”, i.e. locked/in use by an application or otherwise unavailable to be opened via normal operating system methods, then the BA waits for a period of time and performs a “snapshot” (primarily using Microsoft VSS; for gritty details see this link) to “freeze” the required hard drive volumes so that we can get read access to the file and inspect and back it up. This is a “fail safe” backup that ensures that–in almost every case short of catastrophic system issues–we are able to access and protect the data as required.

These two backup methodologies work in tandem to create an “always on” method of backup and protection.

Now to understand what this means to you, a user, in terms of operational status and reporting, we need to contrast the “always on” methodology with the older/existing “scheduled” form of backup.

How scheduled backups work

In the old world of scheduled backups, you set a backup to run at a specific date and time (and interval generally), and then a scheduler ensures that this happens in a consistent fashion. This means every time that the schedule “starts”, the backup job starts, runs through its paces, and then finishes, sleeping until the next time the schedule requires it to start again.

From a logging and status perspective, this means you have a defined start time, a defined work list of files to protect/process, and a defined finish event. The backup job typically knows what files it is protecting, can gauge the amount of time required to protect them, and can definitely state at the end of the job exactly what has transpired. This is something that is very easy to log and provide reporting on; it’s an event that has occurred in the past, and the metrics are frozen in time to clearly be parsed and summarized.

“Always on” backup and the challenges of reporting and status

When you move to a world where there is a possibility of continual backup (i.e. backup that occurs instantly time a file is modified), you can see that immediately you run into challenges about how to verbosely describe and predict the nature of your backup status.

For example, there is no longer the concept of a single “job”; because we are always watching for file changes, at any given time there may be zero or there may be many files that are being processed. Providing detailed projections on the amount of data yet to be protected, and the status of files that are pending protection, poses unique challenges. To use an analogy from my previous description, we may have 1,000 backup jobs, or we may have zero, and at any time that job may change characteristics to include more or less files as we process the backup queue.

This is compounded by the fact that we want to ensure that, from any web browser, you are able to manage and observe the status of your backup and restore operations.  Providing up-to-the-second status is relatively trivial on a rich, endpoint focused application: you don’t have to deal with the latencies of the internet, or the impact of uploading and processing backup and restore logs and results continually to provide a useful, timely, human readable status on a web portal.   That said, our commitment is to provide this functionality, and we are making progress on this commitment.

Challenges also arise in the area of Reporting. Anyone with database or report generation experience knows that creating reports on demand generally functions most efficiently when pulling data from a relational or other form of database. Unfortunately, keeping all of the data that people may want to report on also exponentially grows the size of records we keep, and ultimately makes it less manageable and has an impact on performance.   As you can imagine, with thousands of file backup activities potentially happening daily on any given system, keeping a detailed long term record of these activities, and providing meaningful metrics on them, is a unique problem in and of itself.

Today’s status and reporting, and a look toward the future

Our power users today will be familiar with the detailed information that is available in the SPN portal under the Computer Profile. You can observe operations in progress (in close to real time), and review a basic history of events (backups and restores, among other, less useful items). Some complaints we hear about this page are below, and what we are working on to address them.

• Problem: “I get too many alerts, and many of them suggest a problem with my backups.”
  Solution: Having read the discussion of how our technology works, including how we retry operations, you can see that there may be many cases in which an initial attempt to protect a file may appear to fail; however, in almost all cases we either immediately (or shortly thereafter) retry the operation and successfully protect the data. In our initial releases, we erred on the side of being a bit too verbose in notifying you of these failure/retry conditions, leading ultimately to a potential perception that backups were not successful (when in fact they were). We’re working diligently to cut down the number of alerts that are being raised, as well as the nature of alerts, so that you only get notified when there is a definitive reason to be concerned.
• Problem: “I’m not able to determine clearly the state of my protection (i.e. are there any files that aren’t protected, and why) at a glance.”
  Solution: It is definitely true that today you must click down into the “real time” status in order to get this information. We agree that this is an extra, cumbersome step, and we’ll be working on the user interface to provide this information at a higher level. Our goal remains “at a glance” understanding of the current status of your protection.
• Problem: “The history events that you see in the computer profile are not always as descriptive or action oriented as I would like.”
  Solution: We understand that having a more rich history, including something like a traditional backup log that shows specific file protection events and failures, is critical to users trying to troubleshoot issues. While our backup technology should ensure that any failure should be retried again and successfully handled, we don’t want users to be denied the opportunity to inspect and confirm their data protection history to their satisfaction.
• Problem: “When I run a report, the summary details are excellent, but I am not able to really dig into specific issues and metrics in detail.”
  Solution: As part of the same efforts that will allow us to provide a more rich backup and restore history in the web portal, we will be extending that functionality into the Reporting data as well. Our goal is to provide very detailed reports, suitable for filing for audit purposes for example, that can be generated on demand or scheduled using our existing facilities.
• Problem: “The web portal provides many details on the existing backups/restores for a computer, but the system tray client provides only a summary.”
  Solution: While the primary goal of SPN is always to provide rich management from the web portal, we definitely understand there are cases where it is more convenient or natural to look to the installed client application for status. Today we provide basic/summarized information about work in progress, and direct you to the portal for more information. While changes in this area are not prioritized as immediately as the other items I’ve mentioned, they are definitely in the plans and will be delivered as free, automatic LiveUpdates when they become available.

So when can you expect to see these changes?

Well, there won’t be a day when you wake up and suddenly the entire user experience is changed with all items resolved (although this would have made an interesting Christmas surprise ). There will be a phased process during which we release the underlying technical changes, and then beging to expose them in the relevant areas in the user interface as each portion of work is available. In general terms, we would like to have the majority of these items released in the next 3-4 months.

However, it’s important to note that nothing about the overall backup technology itself is changing; it is a reliable solution, and the enhancements that we are providing to the user experience we hope will only serve to illustrate that for our users. Symantec Online Backup was always meant to be “set it and forget it”; I hope the new tools we provide will go further to serve those goals.

For suggestions, comments, and questions, as always feel free to use the comments or contact me at richard_goodwin@symantec.com

We’ve just released a new study on the backup practicies of small businesses. The data is compiled from hundreds of interviews with small business owners, and we put it together to help identify trends in the market and to help us best design our service for our users. In a future post I’ll dissect more of the data and provide some commentary from my perspective.

You can go directly to the download page by clicking here.

More info can also be found in the press release: Symantec Reveals Small-to-Medium Business Data Protection Practices Not On Pace With Data Growth

(I’ve also pasted the press release contents below the More link)

Symantec Reveals Small-to-Medium Business Data Protection Practices Not On Pace With Data Growth

Survey outlines risky backup processes that can negatively impact sales and customer relationships
CUPERTINO, Calif. – Dec. 1, 2008 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) announces today that a new independent study finds that small and medium businesses (SMB) rate backup as their second-highest computing priority, after defense against viruses and other malware, and ahead of issues such as reducing costs and deploying new computers. Ninety-two percent of companies have deployed some form of data backup technology, yet 50 percent of those respondents have lost data. Of the companies that lost data, approximately a third have lost sales, 20 percent have lost customers and a quarter claim the data loss caused severe disruptions to the company.

“A lot of small business owners don’t think data loss can happen to them,” said Susan Shea Cameron, Ed.S., BCBA, clinical director and partner, Cameron Consultation. “When the hard drives failed on our company computers, our work came to a six-week standstill, clients had to wait, meetings had to be rescheduled and we risked losing a curriculum that took 20 years to create. I now use Symantec Online Backup and will never again go through the experience of losing data that I thought was backed up.”

Many companies do not back up their computers fully. About a quarter of SMBs conduct no backup of their PCs, and another 13 percent do only informal backups where employees decide the frequency and which files are protected without corporate guidance. The situation is similar for servers; about 20 percent of SMBs conduct no server backup.

When backups do occur, most backup files are not stored remotely. More than half of all backup files on PCs and servers are stored in the same location as the originals, which leaves the company vulnerable to permanent data loss. According to survey results, causes of data loss are diverse. Although natural disasters are often cited as a risk, onsite disasters are the primary contributing factor of data loss. Sixty-three percent of respondents cited hardware failure as a cause of data loss incidents, 27 percent from deliberate sabotage by employees, and 27 percent from theft.

“In a small or mid-sized business, where money and staff time are at a premium, there’s always something more pressing to do than manage backups,” said Chris Schin, senior director of product management, Symantec. “As digital data volumes increase so does the risk of irrevocable harm to a company’s bottom line if that data is not protected. Our customers are looking for solutions from a trusted provider that offer simplified management and the ability to scale as their businesses grow.”

Symantec Online Backup scales to provide small and mid-sized businesses with secure, affordable backup and recovery over the Internet. With Symantec Online Backup, small businesses can get the same level of secure, on-going protection expected by the Fortune 500.

Symantec commissioned Rubicon Consulting to conduct an independent survey of IT decision-makers at several hundred small businesses, of fewer than 250 employees in North America, to determine how effectively they protect their data and whether their backup practices have kept pace with the growth of their data. For more details on the survey results go to https://www4.symantec.com/Vrt/offer?a_id=72725 or www.spn.com.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Note to Editors: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

For those that missed the press this week, the acquisition of MessageLabs by Symantec has officially closed.

We’ll be sharing more information here about changes and our SaaS/cloud strategies in the coming weeks and months. For now, I’d like to welcome our new colleagues and we look forward to the challenging, rewarding and copious work we have in front of us to continue to offer valuable services and solutions to our customers

More information about some of the future strategy can be found on our official acquisition site.

The press release can be found at the following link, or read it in full below the “More” link below.

Symantec completes acquisition of MessageLabs

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Nov. 17, 2008 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq:SYMC) today announced it has completed its acquisition of MessageLabs, on Nov. 14, 2008. MessageLabs is the leading provider of online messaging services, securing more than three billion email connections each day. The acquisition agreement between Symantec and MessageLabs was announced on Oct. 8, 2008.

With the acquisition of MessageLabs, Symantec gains a leadership position in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market and expands Symantec’s existing portfolio of SaaS offerings with messaging and web security services from MessageLabs. The combined expertise from MessageLabs and Symantec will expand SaaS delivery and customer support models across the Symantec technology portfolio and accelerate the development of new hybrid online and on-premise offerings for IT professionals.

Messaging security solutions protect organizations from the costly effects of spam and viruses entering the network and prevent unauthorized content from being transferred into the wrong hands. With the close of the acquisition, Symantec expands its messaging security market leadership to two times its nearest competitor and offers customers greater choice by providing the broadest range of offerings in the messaging security market including software, appliance and hosted services. Customers will also have greater access to SaaS offerings through the up-sell and cross sell of services into the MessageLabs customer base and through Symantec channels.

Additional Resources

For additional information on the MessageLabs acquisition and planned integration points with the Symantec portfolio please visit: http://go.symantec.com/messagelabs.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

Note to Editors: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Forward-looking Statements: This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws, including expectations regarding the potential benefits of the acquisition, that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this press release. Such risk factors include, among others, our ability to successfully integrate the merged businesses and technologies, and customer demand for the technologies and integrated product offerings. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors is contained in the Risk Factors section of Symantec’s most recently filed Form 10-K. Symantec assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement contained in this press release. The contents of the Symantec website shall not be deemed incorporated by reference into this press release.

Thanks to David Strom at Webinformant.tv, we have a new video review of Symantec Online Backup. David covers several topics, from preventing your PC from sleeping (a great tip!) to some of the areas we’re working to improve in the Online Backup service (like detailed progress information; expect a preview post on this soon).

Link to the review at Webinformant.tv

Alternate version at Metacafe (a Flash version if you have trouble viewing the embedded WMV version above)

Thanks David!

As this is my first post, please allow me introduce myself…

My name is Mark Alba and I work on the SPN team, responsible for partner product management.  You may be asking yourself, “What exactly is partner product management, Mark?” Or maybe you could care less.  At any rate, let me explain. Partner product management develops the business models and tools required by our channel partners to deliver software-as-a-service solutions to their customers.  We spend a lot of time with partners learning what works best for their business. We’re a listening bunch.  

With that introduction, I’d like to provide an overview of the SPN agency buying model currently used by our partners to deliver SPN services to their customers.  In future posts, I will discuss other buying models and would love to get your thoughts on what works best for your business.

The SPN agency buying model allows partners of all sizes to leverage the Symantec Protection Network platform for full automation of customer sign-up, service provisioning, monitoring and billing. The agency buying model was built to support the “customer acquisition” stage of the SaaS selling process, where customers are able to evaluate SPN services through the use of trial and low cost paid plans. As with any technology deployment, customers at the evaluation stage of a SaaS solution require partner support to extend the initial pilot into the rest of the customer organization. The agency model allows partners to build the value of the customer over time without incurring the order management costs required to support a limited, low dollar customer pilot. 

The following flow chart provides (a very high level) overview of the dynamics of the agency buying model.   

Partners transacting through the SPN Agency model are compensated based on a percentage of their customers’ revenue throughout the life of that customer using Symantec Protection Network services. Partners are paid monthly commission for the initial service purchase, service upgrades, renewals, and purchase of additional Symantec Protection Network online services.

If you are a partner and want to learn more about the SPN Partner Program, buying models or how to participate, check out our partner page.

http://www.symantec.com/partners/theme.jsp?themeid=spn.

Over at the Enterprise Strategy Group’s blog site there’s a great new video blog from Jon Oltsik about the Symantec and MessageLabs acquisition announcement. I’ve embedded the video below:

From my perspective, Jon was dead on about some of the goals we have with Symantec Protection Network:

• Supplementing a product based world: while Symantec has always had an extremely strong set of offerings for on premise solutions, we believe that service based delivery of our technologies is critical path for the future for us and our customers.
• Reduced acquisition/operating costs: I’ll refrain from using the “now, more than ever” form of this argument, but I think we can all agree that providing solutions that are less expensive to acquire and maintain is a worthwhile endeavor. By building a shared platform for our services, we hope to make it easier and cheaper for our customers, no matter what service they may need at a given time.
• Provide a complete portfolio: While I can’t say we’ll be able to serve every need of a small business (for example, I don’t think we’re going to provide online business card ordering), we do intend to provide as many of the information and asset protection services needed by our SMB customers and partners as possible. By adding a strong player like MessageLabs to the team, we continue to execute on that plan.

So thanks for the overview Jon, and I hope we can give you more interesting material in the future!

As an aside, I think the format of the talk is great, and reminiscent of the Steve Jobs “Chalk talk” videos making the rounds recently:

Some of you may have seen the press around our new Symantec Protection Network Partner program structure. Joe Panettieri provided a good overview of the changes here:

http://www.mspmentor.net/2008/10/16/symantec-launches-partner-program-for-saas/

If you’re part of the existing SPN partner program, you’ll be able to find more info soon in PartnerNet. If you’re not, or not yet a Symantec partner, you can easily sign up at PartnerNet ; membership is free, and you can get started quickly providing Symantec solutions to your customers, along with excellent training and other benefits.

For our current and future customers, if you’re not working with Symantec Protection Network through a partner, you may want to consider it as an option. Our partners receive technical training, get priority support, and can provide hands on management and other services in addition to helping provide your SPN service. Ask your current reseller, or look at our main page at http://www.spn.com to find other partners (click the “Find a Partner” link in the sidebar in the bottom content area).

We’ll have more information about our partner programs and promotions in the future, so stay tuned!

Today I’m very excited to share with you the news that we’ve added an extremely strong new offering to our Symantec Protection Network platform for the future.  We have announced that we’re acquiring MessageLabs, the leading provider of online messaging security. More info can be found at our official announcement page:

http://www.symantec.com/business/theme.jsp?themeid=messagelabs

As I’ve mentioned in the past, one of the key goals of SPN is to become the “one stop shop” for all of the security and protection services needed for your business. Adding messaging security is a natural progression for us, and as it’s no secret that email is a critical medium for almost any SMB, we see it as part of our responsibility to our customers to offer this kind of protection as part of a complete solution.

By adding MessageLabs’ 14 worldwide data centers, we are taking our first steps into international expansion. Being able to serve our customers in every region is important to us, and is another reason to look forward to interesting things from us in the future.

Moving forward, not only do we complement our technology portfolio and ability to reach customers, but we are lucky to have added a great team of people that have shown their knowledge and capabilities of delivering valued services in the SaaS space. The experience they bring will help us to continue to expand Symantec Protection Network into new services and markets, and I am really looking forward to being able to grow into them together.

(If you’ve not read the press release, you can catch it after the “read more” break below. )

Symantec to Extend Online Services with Acquisition of MessageLabs

Market leaders join to deliver the broadest set of messaging security offerings

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Oct. 8, 2008 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MessageLabs, a leading provider of online messaging and Web security services.

Under the terms of the agreement, Symantec will acquire MessageLabs for a purchase price of approximately $695 million in cash, subject to foreign currency adjustments, payable in approximately £310 million Pounds Sterling and $154 million US Dollars.  MessageLabs generated approximately $145 million in revenue during fiscal year 2008, ending July 31, 2008 and grew by more than 20 percent over the prior fiscal year.  The agreement is subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close by the end of the 2008 calendar year.

With the acquisition of MessageLabs, Symantec gains a leadership position in the rapidly growing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) segment and strengthens its lead in the messaging security market. MessageLabs is the number-one provider of online messaging security worldwide with more than eight million end users at more than 19,000 clients ranging from small business to the Fortune 500. Symantec will capitalize on cross-selling and up-selling its existing SaaS offerings of backup, storage and online remote access into the MessageLabs customer base. And future SaaS offerings, leveraging Symantec technology in data loss prevention, compliance, endpoint security and archiving, will be enhanced by MessageLabs’ expertise in SaaS sales, operations and support.

“MessageLabs extends our investments in the Software-as-a Service segment and will allow us to offer our customers unprecedented choice from a single provider of message security solutions,” said John W. Thompson, chairman and chief executive officer, Symantec. “By combining MessageLabs with our Symantec Protection Network team, we have one of the strongest portfolios of cloud-based infrastructure services and a great foundation on which to grow.”

By combining MessageLabs’ deep expertise in the SaaS market with Symantec’s rich portfolio of technologies, Symantec will be able to offer a broad portfolio of online service to secure and manage information. By bringing together two industry leaders, Symantec significantly expands its messaging security market leadership. In addition, Symantec will provide the broadest range of offerings in the messaging security market including software, appliance and hosted services.

“Symantec and MessageLabs have a common belief in the benefits of in-the-cloud services and how they enable customers to be protected from threats and enforce policy,” said Adrian Chamberlain, chief executive officer, MessageLabs. “MessageLabs’ services help ensure that only safe and appropriate information enters and leaves the organization. Together, with Symantec, we can set a roadmap for the future of online services.”

This acquisition also continues the momentum of the Symantec Protection Network, the Symantec SaaS platform. By combining MessageLabs and Symantec Protection Network, customers will benefit from access to a greater number of SaaS offerings on one easy-to-use portal and the opportunity to purchase through a broader network of partners in more locations around the world. MessageLabs customers will now have access to Symantec Protection Network offerings through MessageLabs’ established SaaS go-to-market model. Symantec’s proven small-and-medium and enterprise channel program will expand the global access to MessageLabs offerings.

MessageLabs’ established suite of online services for messaging and web security provide additional, complementary offerings to those already available on the Symantec Protection Network platform which includes Online Backup, Online Storage for Backup Exec and Online Remote Access. MessageLabs’ 14 worldwide data centers and significant expertise in SaaS sales, operations and support will also allow for future international expansion of current Symantec Protection Network services.

MessageLabs plus Symantec Protection Network will result in the creation of a new Symantec Software-as-a-Service product group to accelerate the development of new SaaS solutions and hybrid offerings for IT professionals. SaaS is described as one of the most impactful trends in software with a current estimated market size of $5.71 billion (in 2007) reaching $16.98 billion by 2012, representing 24.4 percent CAGR according to IDC¹. For more information on how MessageLabs will complement Symantec in the delivery of SaaS offerings please visit: http://go.symantec.com/MessageLabs

Webcast and Conference Call Information

Symantec will host a conference call and webcast today to discuss the acquisition at 5 a.m. PDT/ 8 a.m. EDT/ 1 p.m. GMT+1. The live discussion can be accessed by dialing 888-253-4037 domestic and 719-867-0591 internationally, passcode 460686. An audio webcast of the call will also be available at www.symantec.com/invest. Please go to the Web site at least 15 minutes early to register, download, and install any necessary audio software. A replay of the call will be available via webcast at www.symantec.com/invest.

About MessageLabs

MessageLabs is a leading provider of integrated messaging and web security services, with more than 19,000 clients ranging from small business to the Fortune 500 located in more than 86 countries. MessageLabs provides a range of managed security services to protect, control, encrypt and archive communications across email, web and instant messaging. These services are delivered by MessageLabs globally distributed infrastructure and supported 24/7 by security experts. This provides a convenient and cost-effective solution for managing and reducing risk and providing certainty in the exchange of business information. MessageLabs main shareholders include the founders Ben and Jos White, Catalyst Investors and Prospect Investment Management. For more information, please visit www.MessageLabs.com.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help businesses and consumers secure and manage their information. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has operations in more than 40 countries. More information is available at www.symantec.com

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NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please visit the Symantec News Room at http://www.symantec.com/news. All prices noted are in U.S. dollars and are valid only in the United States.

Symantec and the Symantec Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Symantec Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws, including expectations regarding the closing of Symantec’s acquisition of Message Labs and the integration of its products and technologies into Symantec’s products and solutions, that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this press release. Such risk factors include, among others, satisfaction of closing conditions to the transaction, our ability to successfully integrate the acquired businesses and technologies, and customer demand for the technologies and integrated product offerings. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors is contained in the Risk Factors sections of Symantec’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 28, 2008. Symantec assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement contained in this press release.

[1] Source: IDC, Worldwide Software on Demand 2008-2012 Forecast and 2007 Vendor Shares: Moving Toward an On-Demand World, Doc # #213197, July 2008

Recent days have seen some interesting cloud and hosting related announcements, including Amazon’s announcement of Oracle databases available from AWS.

Now, hosted databases are not entirely new, with various methods having been offered in the past, but this marks a new form of easily customer-deployable (but yet still requiring management) solution, that can even leverage your existing Oracle licenses.

As the accessibility of these solutions advances, it raises a few questions around which I’d like feedback, if you’re considering (or have made) a move to hosted databases:

• Hybrid or pure deployment? - When you look at the architecture for using a cloud database, would you consider it as a primary resource, or to complement existing onsite deployments? Furthermore, would you migrate existing resources to the new hosted instances?
• Security - Now that your database resource is no longer within a firewall (or VPN), as many are, what new security measures will you be considering? Does this mean a new headache for you of deploying VPN resources into your cloud (or modifying usage models to use different protocols)? Or is this a moot point for the applications you are considering?
• Intended Usage - A significant number of AWS services are positioned around startups and web services that are bringing direct-to-the-market offerings to fruition. Do you fall in this camp, or are you considering AWS/Oracle for internal business use?
• Backup/long term archiving - Obviously, we believe in the reliability and promise of online backup, and Amazon has provided a solution for the Oracle instances using S3. Is this something you would consider as your primary means of backup, or supplement it by storing additional copies elsewhere, in the cloud or on premise?

As each day goes by, more and more of your primary data is starting (or has the opportunity) to move offsite, both in the form of unstructured data (like identity and general web app usage), and now more and more structured and critical data (like databases and file systems).  Having a backup copy of this data could mean the difference between a crisis or a nuisance in the case of a disaster, either on premise or off.

How is this changing model impacting your decisions around how to protect your data?