EMC has announced the next generation of NetWorker, its flagship back-up and recovery solution.

The new version of Networker will integrate de-duplication abilities and Continuous Data Protection (CDP) in a single solution. Nigel Ghent, EMC marketing director, said the de-duplication functon will allow organisations to greatly reduce backup storage and speed up restoration. NetWorker CDP will give immediate recovery from CDP snapshots and apply CDP technology to disk based environments, Ghent said.

This is combining the different processes of data integration, back-up and snapshotting into one, giving organisations a centralised back-up process, which they access from a single console, Ghent explained.

The driver for the development of EMC NetWorker de-duplication and continuous data protection support is the escalating amounts of data that enterprise have to deal with, Ghent said. There is an increasing need for the data to be de-duplicated before it is backed up, Ghent added.

EMC has made three acquisitions which have enabled the new product’s design, Ghent said. The purchase in 2003 of Legato, a provider of information storage systems, has improved Networker’s back-up functionality, while last year EMC acquired both Kashya, a data protection software vendor and, Avamar, the de-duplication vendor, he added.

EMC has also announced new Disk Library models with an updated 1TB drive, increasing the capacity of a library by 20 per cent and an update of EMC’s reporting and analysis tool, BackupAdvisor, which will expand support out to CA, CommVault, Symantec and NetApp. A new version of HomeBase will be available with a new entry level option.