Microsoft Highlights New Storage Services, RTC For Windows.Net Server 2003

Microsoft

As first reported by CRN last May, the next Windows server upgrade due in early 2003 will offer new enterprise file system and storage features including Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) and Virtual Disk Service (VDS).

The advanced enterprise storage features will enable heterogenous interoperation among storage hardware, software and business applications from multiple vendors into a single Windows.Net storage infrastructure.

VSS, for example, creates a fast copy of data on a second set of disks that can be frozen at any period to assure the ability to rollback and reconstruct if a disk fails. It will also enable the creation of high-quality shadow copies, due to improved integration with business applications and storage hardware as well as enhanced backups, recovery and data-mining capabilities.

VDS, the other new feature, will give customers a simple, standard way to configure disks, either directly attached storage disks or storage area network disks.

Several major players in the enterprise storage arena are committed to exploiting the new Windows.Net Server 2003 capabilities to deliver advanced solutions. They include EMC, Fujitsu, NEC, StorageTek, HP, Hitachi, IBM, Dell, Adaptec, Brocade, Unisys and Xiotech.

Release Candidate 2 is due this fall while the final version will ship in early 2003, officials have said.

At MEC 2002, Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Microsoft's .Net Enterprise Server Division, highlighted the new storage features in Windows .Net as well as plans to offer instant messaging and all forms of realtime communications as a server add-on. Flessner also debuted the company's forthcoming eBusiness server suite, code-named "Jupiter," and the next major upgrade of Exchange, "Titanium," at the Anaheim show.

The VSS and VDS features are a small part of Microsoft's enterprise storage agenda, which will center on the company's "Yukon" unified database now in development for all .Net servers.

The software giant, which established a new Enterprise Storage Division earlier this year, is highly focused on a new storage architecture for Windows.Net as it increasingly competes on the corporate enterprise landscape against IBM and other enterprise-focused companies.

Last month, the software giant also announced plans to integrate multi-path Input/Output [MPIO technology into Windows.Net 2003 and Windows 2000 that will allow up to 32 physical paths to access a storage device, as a way to improve system reliability and availability by enabling such features as fault tolerance and/or load balancing.