Security software maker Symantec and cloud automation provider OpsCode  both announced tighter integration with VMware’s data center virtualization solutions today, just as the company’s annual event is kicking into higher gear.

Symantec’s update is the more extensive one: the company debuted new software and upgraded a few of its existing offerings for VMware environments.

The latest addition to the vendor’s product-line is Cluster Server, which automatically provides failover between virtual machines. The solution, currently in beta, aims to speed up recovery without taking away from advanced functions.

Symantec also rolled out v7.6 of its NetBackup suite. NetBackup Accelerator for VMware is touted as being 100 times faster than the previous release, while NetBackup Instant Recovery is said to be 800 times faster than 7.5.

George Winter, technical product manager for NetBackup, says that this is facilitated thanks to a virtual machine data store on VMware ESXi used by the software boost performance.

“So you can boot up the virtual machine from that ESXi [host] and then use vMotion to migrate a VM from temporary storage to a permanent data store,” Winter said. “And, we’re not impacting our backup image in any way. All the users see is a virtual machine online and accessible. It takes up to 60 seconds to boot that virtual machine.”

NetBackup now also features deeper integration with vCenter. Admins can not only view their backups from VMware’s management platform but they can also make use of the native features to add more automation and better reporting into the mix.

Symantec also unveiled the latest version of its Dynamic Multi-Pathing software, which supports vSphere 5.0 and more vCenter capabilities.

Backup and recovery is one of the hottest topics at VMworld right now. VirtualSharp,  another partner, announced a free edition of its ReliableDR software for VMware-virtualized data centers.

Also today OpsCode, the creator of the Chef automation framework, also had a big update. The firm announced that it added vCloud support to all the major versions of the solution: Open Source Chef, Hosted Chef and Private Chef.