Microsoft Data Protection Server

Microsoft has a new product in the works. It's called Data Protection Server. It's a disk-based backup solution. It's a separate service like SQL or Exchange that would run on top of Windows 2003 Server. It sounds like Volume Shadow Copy on steroids. It takes snapshots of your files periodically throughout the day and stores them on the Data Protection Server. And like VSC, it will have a mechanism for allowing the users to restore their own backups, if they have accidentally overwritten or deleted a file for example.

You'll still need your tape backup solution, such as Backup Exec. DPS isn't intended to replace that just yet. It's just meant to provide a quicker, simpler way to recover your data for the majority of problems. Tapes will still be needed for long-term backups and the ability to move data out of the server itself and offsite of the facility in case of disasters.

The first release will be intended primarily to backup your file servers. Future versions should have the ability to target specific applications such as SQL and Exchange.

Sounds pretty interesting. It's still in development but you can go the DPS website and signup to be notified when the beta is released.