Symantec reveals Endpoint Protection

At the massive Symantec Vision Conference 2007 in the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Symantec unveiled Endpoint Protection -- previously codenamed "Hamlet".

At this Symantec fest, in what is quite possibly the most insane city on the planet, the security company's chief executive officer announced Endpoint Protection version 1.0, which combines traditional av, IPS and IDS with a security management console, to a background of thudding music and massive back-projections. Thompson was (unsurprisingly) upbeat.

"It gets the job done," Thompson told the crowd of journalists, analysts, and the Symantec faithful.

The Endpoint Protection box has "preset network access control capabilities", and protects against zero-day threats by using behavioural analysis, according to Thompson.

Symantec also announced Storage United, a software product which Symantec claims will enable storage professionals not only to gain a comprehensive overview of what they have in their systems, but also manage storage through a centralised console.

"Many enterprises have no idea how much storage they're using," said Thompson.

In what quickly become a raft of new product anouncements, Symantec also announced Veritas NetBackup 6.5 -- the latest version of its data management product.

According to a Symantec press release, "NetBackup 6.5 introduces a host of features and enhancements including native disk-based backup, data deduplication, integration with backup appliances and VTLs, heterogeneous snapshot management, granular recovery for critical applications and virtual machines, and new licensing and pricing programs."

I'm hoping to talk to Symantec here in Las Vegas to decipher some of the language in this release (what exactly is "heterogeneous snapshot management" for example?), and hopefully I'll avoid calling Symantec United "Symantec Untied".