Features - Storage Innovations:

STORAGE PARTNERS RALLY AROUND DATA PROTECTION SERVER

At the Storage Decisions 2004 conference, Microsoft Corp announced it is entering the disk-based backup and recovery industry with Microsoft Data Protection Server (DPS), a low-cost, continuous, disk-based backup and recovery solution. Designed to address the growing need for businesses of all sizes to easily recover data, Data Protection Server will simplify and reduce the backup and recovery process. DPS is designed to provide robust data protection for the Windows Server System family, reducing complexity and improving operational efficiency for Windows customers. More than 20 storage industry partners today announced their support for Data Protection Server and their intent to work with Microsoft to provide customers with a broad choice of Windows-based storage solutions.

"Customers are telling us that backing up and recovering their data is labor-intensive and complex. Exponential growth of business-critical data and new government regulations are increasing the cost and complexity of backup and recovery, forcing companies to rethink their data protection planning," said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. "Data Protection Server has garnered broad industry support because it will help customers of all sizes shrink their recovery time from hours to minutes and drive down the cost of maintaining storage infrastructures."

Partners Demonstrate Broad Support

More than 20 industry storage partners, including backup and recovery independent software vendors (ISVs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and independent hardware vendors (IHVs), have announced broad support for Data Protection Server. Building on DPS, they can offer increased flexibility, value and choice to Windows customers. Microsoft DPS partners include the following companies:

• ISVs: CommVault Systems Inc, Computer Associates International Inc, Dantz Development Corp, LiveVault Corp, NSI Software Inc, Quest Software Inc and Yosemite Technologies Inc.
• OEMs: Dell Inc, EMC Corp, Hitachi Data Systems Corp, HP, Iomega Corp, NEC Corp, Quantum Corp and Storage Technology Corp.
• IHVs: Dot Hill Systems Corp, Engenio Information Technologies Inc, Intel Corp, LeftHand Networks Inc, QLogic Corp, Seagate Technology Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc.

"The use of disk as a data-protection medium delivers significant improvements in recovery time and recovery-point objectives, and makes possible a continuum of data recovery options spanning backup and replication," said Alex Gorbansky, senior analyst at the Taneja Group. "We view Microsoft as an important enabler for bringing the benefits of disk-based data-protection technologies to the masses."

More About Microsoft Data Protection Server

Data Protection Server allows IT administrators to easily and affordably utilize existing Windows Server investments such as the Active Directory service, Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2003. Microsoft Data Protection Server provides three unique capabilities:

• Rapid and reliable recovery through use of disk-based backup allows IT administrators and end users to recover data in minutes instead of hours.
• Continuous, efficient protection allows data to be backed up without impacting IT infrastructure.
• Integration with tape through a backup interface under development that is based on the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) API included in Windows Server 2003 will allow tape backup partners to address customer needs for backup and recovery in Windows-based environments.