Backup Exec

Backup Exec, proprietary backup software developed since 2005 by Symantec, has a long history of successive owner-companies. Its earliest roots stretch back to the early 1980s when Maynard Electronics wrote a bundle of software drivers to help sell their tape-drive products.^[1] As of 2014 Backup Exec provides market leading Backup and Recovery software for all sizes of organizations that are predominantly Microsoft or VMware centric data-protection solution. Backup Exec protects both virtual and physical environments with a single user interface.

History

Provenance

• 1982 - Maynard Electronics started. Maynard's software is known as "MaynStream."
• 1989 - Maynard is acquired by Archive Corp. MaynStream is available for DOS, Windows, Macintosh, OS/2, and NetWare.
• 1991 - Quest Development Corporation is independently formed to develop backup software under contract for Symantec.
• 1993 - Conner Peripherals acquires Archive Corp. and renames the software "Backup Exec".
• 1993 - Quest acquired rights to FastBack for Macintosh, and hired its principal author, Tom Chappell, from Fifth Generation Systems.
• 1994 - Conner creates a subsidiary, Arcada Software, by acquiring Quest and merging it with their existing software division.
• 1995 - Arcada acquires the SyTron division from Rexon, including their OS/2 backup software.
• 1996 - Conner is acquired by Seagate Technology and Arcada is merged into its subsidiary Seagate Software.
• 1999 - VERITAS Software acquires Seagate Software's Network and Storage Management Group, which included Backup Exec.
• 2005 - Symantec acquires VERITAS, including both Backup Exec and NetBackup (a completely different backup-software package).

Major releases

• Seagate Backup Exec 7.2, October 1998
• VERITAS Backup Exec 7.3, March 1999
• VERITAS Backup Exec 8.0, January 2000
• VERITAS Backup Exec 8.6, November 2001
• VERITAS Backup Exec 9.0, June 2003
• VERITAS Backup Exec 9.1, December 2003
• VERITAS Backup Exec 10.0, January 2005
• Symantec Backup Exec 10d, September 2005^[2]
• Symantec Backup Exec 11d, November 2006^[3]
• Symantec Backup Exec 12, February 2008^[4]
• Symantec Backup Exec 12.5, October 2008
• Symantec Backup Exec 2010 (13.0), February 2010
• Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R2, August 2010 (a minor update that supports Exchange 2010 SP1 among other things)
• Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3, May 2011
• Symantec Backup Exec 2012 (14.0), March 5, 2012
• Symantec Backup Exec 2014, (14.1), June 2, 2014
• Symantec Backup Exec 15, (14.2), 2015-04-06 ^[5]

Architecture

Backup Exec installations can have one or more media servers, which are responsible for moving data from one or more locations to a storage medium, including virtually any disk or tape device. The data may be from the local system or from a remote system. The core Backup Exec product can have additional functionality unlocked through the addition of agent and option licenses. Not all agents are agents in the traditional sense. For example the Agent for VMware and Hyper-V is not carrying out the backup process. The agent is simply collecting meta data (takes a few seconds) so that Backup Exec can perform granular recoveries directly from storage at a point in the future - no mounting required. Multiple media servers can be managed using the Central Admin Server Option. Current versions of the software support Microsoft, VMware, Linux and Macintosh amongst a longer list of supported software.

Backup Exec shares the same Microsoft Tape Format with Windows' built-in NTBackup.

See also

• List of backup software

References

External links

• Backup Exec Product Page on Symantec.com
• Backup Exec Knowledge Base Search page
• Backup Exec 12 Best Practices Guide
• Backup Exec 11d Best Practices Guide Table of Contents
• A Detailed History Of Backup Exec From StorageNewsletter With A Chart