Veritas Spruces Up SRM: Page 2 of 3

As for the new file management capabilities, Ward says that they help administrators block specific incoming files, like MP3, video, and audio files. The software can also block files that are inappropriate for a corporate network. “A lot of companies don’t want to be liable for documents coming into their system,” he says.

The StorageCentral software is a part of Veritas’s so-called utility computing strategy, which aims to enforce cost accountability for storage use, thus optimizing storage utilization and allowing companies to manage their storage as they do any other utility (see Veritas Moves up the Stack). Other products included in this strategy are Veritas SANPoint Control, which enables centralized, policy-based storage management, and Veritas Storage Reporter, which provides analysis of storage usage across heterogeneous environments, thus helping predict future storage needs.

The new software version will bring Veritas one step closer to reaching its goal of integrating the software it recently acquired both with Precise and Jereva with its existing software products. “There’s a whole slew of integration opportunities with the products,” Ward says. “Our SRM suite is going to become more and more integrated over time.”

But even as the acquired software products become more and more Veritas-ified, complete integration between Windows-focused StorageCentral and the company’s homemade, heterogeneous SRM software, SANPoint Control, look as if they'll remain separate products for a while longer.

In any case, Ward isn’t worried about traction. The company already has more than 1,000 customers for previous versions of StorageCentral, and he expects the new version will quickly gain customers. “We’ll have some people buying it immediately,” he says.