This Lab Validation report from ESG provides you with best practices to create an environment that offers you simple unified data protection across physical and virtual landscapes, maximum protection and data availability, and reduced storage needs and operational costs. Find out how Symantec Backup Exec 2014 measures up against best practices in virtual data protection.

This IDC Executive Brief will discuss the evolution and challenges of data protection for virtual environments and how a modern data protection solution can enable both virtualization professionals and storage managers to perform successful backups, but more importantly guaranteed restores. Benefits and challenges of data protection for virtual environments will be discussed, as well as emerging best practices for unified data protection.

This IDC White Paper explores the increased use and adoption patterns of PBBAs, both integrated and targeted, and the utility these appliances provide to customers in their data protection processes. In addition, this White Paper illuminates the customer value that Symantec's Backup Exec and NetBackup appliances bring to the data protection and recovery process.

This whitepaper first discusses what to look for in a virtualization protection solution and then considers the merits of a separate solution for protecting one’s virtual environment, compared with using a unified solution that offers comparable virtualization protection capabilities. Near the back of this document is a guide to assessing the total cost of ownership for separate vs. unified solutions for protecting the virtual components of a modern infrastructure. This paper is being released in tandem with an ESG Lab Report that assesses Symantec Backup Exec 2012 and its virtualization protection technologies.