Symantec has unveiled a new backup and data recovery product in a bid to capture a growing chunk of the SMB pie.

Backup Exec System Recovery 7.0 introduces enhanced Microsoft Exchange, virtual and data recovery capabilities as well as new centralised management functionality. According to the vendor, it enables businesses to recover complete Windows systems in minutes, not hours or days.

Symantec Asia-Pacific and Japan vice-president and channels, John Donovan, said the technology aimed to give IT administrators added flexibility and simplified management - top pain points in the small business arena.

"SMB customers have the same problems they had five or six years ago, but also have more threats to deal with and more data to contain and secure," he said. "As such, data management and security are increasing concerns for the small business customer."

The findings of a recent SMB survey conducted for Symantec suggested that while small businesses were improving the way they protected and stored information by developing Internet security policies, automatic security updates and backing up regularly, they were still impacted by online security threats and spam.

Over the past year, SMBs have had to grapple with a raft of online threats and significant increases in spam, phishing, bot networks, Trojans and zero-day threats. Given the increasing pressure on the small business owner, resellers were encouraged to step up to the plate and help SMBs take a holistic approach to security, Symantec Pacific mid-market manager, Steve Martin, said.

SMBs needed simple, yet feature-rich solutions, he said. Its research showed the smaller fish in the sea had limited budgets and time and suffered from a lack of expertise. These factors were hindering the effectiveness of security and storage policies.

"The lack of in-house expertise and resources is a real challenge for small business customers," Martin said. On the other hand, key drivers for securing and storing information is the risk of losing valuable data and business compliance.

Symantec's 7.0 release adds support for Microsoft Vista, x64-bit platforms, VMware ESX Server and Microsoft Virtual Server. This allows all systems - from servers to desktops to laptops - to be quickly recoverable, whether to similar or dissimilar hardware, according to Symantec Asia-Pacific and Japan senior systems engineer, Mark Read.

The technology also lets IT administrators say goodbye to the tedious manual system recovery processes. The latest software captures an exact copy of a system - including operating system, applications, system settings, user settings and data — in a single recovery point.