Still waiting for Symantec NetBackup 7 release announcement. It has not been released yet,  but actually since Dec 2009, Symantec has been offered what they call as Symantec NetBackup 7.0 First Availability (FA) program.

What’s New In Symantec NetBackup 7

Just a little bit overview of new features in the latest NetBackup 7.0 release:

• Built-in client-side deduplication improves physical & virtual backups speeds by up to 10x
• Software-based deduplication reduces costs by up to 70% versus appliance approaches
• Integrated client and target-side deduplication provides more coverage with fewer tools
• Manage and improve the performance of 3rd party deduplication appliances using OpenStorage

• New VMware data protection improves speed by 50% and reduces storage by up to 40%
• Only NetBackup offers instant file recovery from any type of VMware or Hyper-V backup
• Complete deduplication across all virtual and physical systems regardless of backup method
• No backup or recovery compromises for customers who backup directly to tape

• Recover terabytes of application data in seconds from anywhere at any point-in-time
• Efficiently manage and move up to 80% less data between different sites with optimized replication
• Unified analytics and reporting reduces recovery risk across locations and backup products

• Better predict backup and archiving storage consumption
• Analyze risk and quantify exposure and assess the recoverability of clients and applications
• Easily track backup success rates by backup application across the entire organization

• NetBackup 7 fully supports Windows 2008 R2, Vista/XP/Windows 7, and Storage Server 2008
• NetBackup 7 offers full backup and recovery support for Exchange 2010 DAG environments and Exchange 2003

For more detail, you can attend the Webcast: What’s New in Symantec NetBackup 7 on Tuesday, February 2 2010 @ 9:00 AM PT Presented By: Peter Elliman, Senior Product Marketing Manager, NetBackup.

Attend this webcast and learn how NetBackup 7 can enable your company to:

• Reduce backup storage growth and network utilization by up to 80-90%
• Streamline global backup and recovery management across both physical and virtual environments
• Simplify and speed recovery of critical information from anywhere

REGISTER Webcast here.

Related docs:

NetBackup 7.0 Upgrade Portal (Updated Jan 19th, 2010):
The NetBackup 7.0 Upgrade Portal contains important information regarding upgrading to NetBackup 7.0 from a previous 6.x version.

UPDATE:

Netbackup 7 released already. Read the manual guide:

Installation:

NetBackup 7.0 Upgrade Portal    http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/332137
NetBackup Release Notes    http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340098
Additional Operational Notes    http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/337179
Installation Guide for Windows  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340100
Installation Guide for UNIX and Linux  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340101
LiveUpdate Guide  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340102

Administrator Guides:

Administrator’s Guide for UNIX,Linux, I  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340103
Administrator’s Guide for UNIX,Linux, II  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340104
Administrator’s Guide for Windows, I  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340105
Administrator’s Guide for Windows, II  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340106
OpsCenter Administrator’s Guide  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340107
OpsCenter help set  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340108
NDMP Administrator’s Guide  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340109
Snapshot Client Administrator’s Guide  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340110
NetBackup for Hyper-V Guide  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340111
NetBackup for VMware Guide  http://entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340112

For complete manual guides, go to here:

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/341274.htm