VERITAS Software Corporation (Nasdaq: VRTS) today announced the integration of VERITAS Enterprise Vault content archiving software with IBM TotalStorage DR550 systems. The integration will enable customers to leverage the power of VERITAS' industry-leading capabilities for e-mail and content archiving, which is optimized for policy-based retention of regulated and non-regulated data, with IBM's newest data retention offering that helps customers address long term data retention and regulatory compliance requirements.

The integration is aimed at helping customers more effectively manage the lifecycle of data assets, from creation to retirement, and ensure compliance with regulations that directly or indirectly require the retention and supervision of electronic documents, including SEC 17a-4, NASD 3010, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) among others.
"The legal, political and economic climate is fueling the growth of retention managed data. As companies work to comply with existing regulations, new regulatory mandates emerge. Consequently, it is an increasing challenge for companies to manage data over long periods of time efficiently," said Alan Stuart, chief strategist and business line executive, IBM Data Retention Solutions. "The DR550 is designed to help businesses address this challenge while leveraging their existing software. VERITAS Enterprise Vault integration with the DR550 can help customers more cost-effectively address the myriad and complex issues relating to managing data in accordance with government and industry regulations."

VERITAS Enterprise Vault Version 6.0, introduced today at the VERITAS VISION 2005 conference (see related press release issued today), provides a flexible, software-based archiving framework to enable the retention and retrieval of content held within Lotus Domino/Notes, Microsoft Exchange, SMTP-based e-mail systems, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server, Instant Messaging systems and file server environments. Enterprise Vault software facilitates the movement of e-mails and attachments automatically off messaging system servers to a secure online repository, preventing accidental loss or deletion, and improving data management. Enterprise Vault also includes optional components to aid in the processes of regulatory supervision and legal e-discovery.

"VERITAS is extending the support of Enterprise Vault content archiving software to ensure customers have a breadth of choice in compliant storage platforms to work with. We are pleased to be working with IBM to help customers address two of their most critical issues -- reducing the cost and complexity of storage and managing compliance with increasingly complex government and industry regulations," said Jeremy Burton, executive vice president, data management group, VERITAS Software. "The IBM DR550 in combination with VERITAS Enterprise Vault software, offers organizations simple, rapid recovery of data combined with disk-level data retention to help ensure compliance."

VERITAS Enterprise Vault software integrates with IBM Tivoli Storage Manager for Data Retention, which is used to manage and enforce data retention policies for the IBM TotalStorage DR550. The IBM TotalStorage DR550 is IBM's next generation data retention solution, which can deliver a central point of control for both regulated data and non-regulated data. The solution incorporates IBM POWER5 servers which are designed for increased performance and speed of data storage. Using policy-based, non-erasable and non-rewritable disk technology, it offers increased power, ease-of-use and new security options.

Using Serial ATA (SATA) physical disk storage, the IBM TotalStorage DR550 is ideal for clients seeking near line storage application needs at an entry level price point while capitalizing on mainframe-inspired levels of reliability, security and function. The IBM TotalStorage DR550 also delivers autonomic features such as call home capabilities, allowing the system to alert IT staff if there is a problem.

In addition, the TotalStorage DR550 can help to automatically enforce data retention policies while helping to support on-demand availability of many key data and applications in the event of hardware, software or network failures. The DR550 and VERITAS Enterprise Vault software can help to provide companies with an essential component for effectively managing the value of information that can help reduce the cost of managing and storing data according to compliance regulations.

VERITAS will provide demonstrations of the Enterprise Vault solution at Booth #325 at VERITAS VISION 2005, April 25-27th in San Francisco.