How The LeftHand SAN Simplifies Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager

The storage demands for Microsoft Windows servers have changed dramatically over the last five years. When Windows 2000 was released, the majority of the servers in production were configured with dedicated disk and tape resources to handle data storage and protection. The standard server configuration included a group of disks for the operating system, a group of disks for data, and a tape device for backup. In hindsight, it's clear that this storage configuration was not designed around the terabytes of data that must be stored, protected, and recovered in the average company today.

Microsoft has developed a number of newer storage technologies like Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) and iSCSI that are designed to address the massive amounts of data now being managed by the typical IT administrator. These should be the cornerstones of every storage design. When understood and used properly these technologies can dramatically reduce the IT budget wasted on under-utilized disk and tape storage, at the same time increasing the scalability, availability, and recoverability of the most important corporate asset - data.

This white paper will discuss Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) and the LeftHand iSCSI SAN. Microsoft and LeftHand Networks are partnering to redesign storage best practices and provide the administrator with the tools to manage the storage demands of today and the future.