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Microsoft Backs Up on CDP Claim

PHOENIX -- Storage Networking World -- The data protection product Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) is demonstrating at Storage Networking World has a new name and a slightly different description than when first announced last fall (see Microsoft's Recovery Plan and Microsoft Makes DPM Beta Public).

Microsoft announced Data Protection Server last September and the product, now called System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM), is on track to ship in the second half of this year. But even if it ships on time, DPM will only be the first step towards an enterprise-class backup product.

Why the new name? Microsoft's group product manager Ben Matheson says "Systems Center" is the new product family for all Microsoft systems management products, and all the product names in the family will end with "Manager."

DPM uses a combination of snapshots and replication to back up files, but stops short of the continuous data protection (CDP) capabilities that Microsoft claimed last fall.

Customers will install agents on all protected servers. While the product acts a lot like CDP products aimed at SMBs from startups Storactive Inc. and TimeSpring Software Corp., it stops short of doing restores from any point in time. It also will work only on file servers.

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