NetApp Supporting Windows Server 2008 Physical and Virtual Environments

NetApp announced the expansion of its portfolio of storage and data management solutions for virtualized IT environments that include Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, and Microsoft Hyper-V. As part of this portfolio expansion, NetApp SnapManager 5.0 for Exchange Server, Single Mailbox Recovery 5.0, and SnapManager 5.0 for SQL Server are all now immediately available and compatible with Hyper-V.

These next-generation NetApp data management software products help customers manage their messaging, business intelligence, data warehousing, business application, test and development, and infrastructure storage systems in both physical and virtual environments. Furthermore, with these products, NetApp storage and data management solutions for Microsoft environments enable customers to easily make the transition to Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Exchange Server 2007. This provides customers with increased data availability, improved manageability, and reduced storage costs in physical and virtual server environments.

“Microsoft is pleased that valued industry partners and leaders such as NetApp are supporting SQL Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Windows Server 2008, and Hyper-V by providing innovative storage and data management solutions for our customers,” said Sheila Gulati, general manager of Application Platform Marketing at Microsoft Corporation. “NetApp storage and data management solutions for SQL Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007 enable customers to take advantage of the features and capabilities of SQL Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007, achieving flexible and highly available storage infrastructures to support their business-critical applications and messaging platform. Further, support for the Microsoft Hyper-V virtual platform gives our customers greater productivity and flexibility of their computing and storage resources.”

“These products, when combined with NetApp storage solutions and services for virtual server environments, enable customers to maximize the value of their investment in Windows Server infrastructures,” said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions Marketing for NetApp. “In either physical or virtual Windows Server environments, customers can achieve greater efficiency, performance, and flexibility from their Windows Server ecosystem by leveraging NetApp solutions such as deduplication, thin provisioning, and space-efficient cloning.”

Support of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and SQL Server 2008
“From the thousands of enterprise customers with Microsoft Exchange Server and SQL Server that we support with NetApp storage solutions, we know that customers want to simplify data management and provide continuous operations for Exchange Server and SQL Server,” said Rogers. “Working closely with Microsoft allows us to now extend our industry-leading storage solutions to Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 environments to maximize availability and productivity for our mutual customers.”

Top Features of NetApp SnapManager 5.0 for Exchange Server include:

Support for Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Windows Server 2008, and Hyper-V
Support for Exchange Server 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) and Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) between NetApp and storage systems not from NetApp, empowering customers to efficiently manage heterogeneous Exchange storage environments with NetApp SnapManager for Exchange
Automated and error-free single push-button failover and failback between multiple sites
Policy-based, disk-to-disk data protection, which allows customers to leverage centralized management of their backup processes in large Exchange Server environments
Frequent recovery points, which enable customers to minimize data loss to under 10 minutes in the event of Exchange Server failure
Low recovery time objective (RTO), which enables customers to reduce the risk and time required to restore from verified Exchange Server backups

Top Features of NetApp Single Mailbox Recovery 5.0 for Microsoft Exchange Server include:

Support for Exchange Server 2007 SP1, Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V, and Virtual PC2007
Administrative server framework, which provides customers with simplified server configuration and management, improved mailbox security and access control, and application audit trailing
Ability to open a live Exchange Server as a target, enabling customers to more quickly restore single mailboxes, individual folders, and single messages
Ability to select a single mailbox from an off-line Exchange database and export to individual PST files for each mailbox, eliminating the need for brick-level backups and thereby saving time and reducing storage space requirements
Mailbox Creation Wizard, which allows easy creation of mailboxes on a Target Exchange Server

Top Features of NetApp SnapManager 5.0 for SQL Server include:

Support for SQL Server 2008, Windows Server 2008, and Hyper-V
Policy-based, disk-to-disk data protection, which allows customers to leverage centralized management of their SQL Server backup processes
Ability to create on-the-fly clones of production databases with minimal impact on server and storage infrastructure
Scale-up and scale-out capabilities to support the needs of enterprise customers requiring large, multiterabyte SQL Server databases
Verification of database backups on secondary storage devices, which reduces impact on production systems while improving disaster recoverability
Easy-to-use storage consolidation and migration, which enables customers to easily make the transition to SQL Server 2008
Highly available SQL Server data storage and rapid, cost-effective disaster recovery capability for all applications using the SQL Server database platform

In addition, customers have the benefit of simple, flexible, and cost-effective disaster recovery capabilities with NetApp SnapMirror. NetApp storage solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and SQL Server 2008 also combine with other NetApp data management technologies to enable customers to reduce costs, simplify management, and increase data availability for their Windows Server environments.

NetApp Global Services Driving Complete Customer Solutions
In order to help customers realize their business goals and capitalize on the NetApp advantage for Microsoft environments, our end-to-end services approach is designed to address four critical aspects of technology deployment and management:
Assess — Our assessment methodology identifies business, storage, and infrastructure requirements.

Virtualization Assessment
Storage and Data Assessment
Storage Availability Management

Consult — Architectural design and planning consultation results in blueprints to optimize a customer’s virtualization, backup, disaster recovery, network storage, and security practices.