The software giant said last month at the Storage Decisions 2004 conference it will enter the disk-based backup and recovery industry with the launch of the Data Protection Server, or DPS.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said DPS currently is in a private beta version, but will be launched in the second half of 2005.
The data-production technology includes consolidation of backups across a network of multiple servers, while using disk storage as a primary backup for near-term requests.
Integration with tape for longer-term data would be facilitated through a backup interface under development that is based on the Volume Shadow Copy Service API included in Windows Server 2003.
More than 20 storage-industry partners announced their support for DPS, including independent software vendors CommVault Systems Computer Associates, Dantz Development, LiveVault, NSI Software, Quest and Yosemite; as well as original equipment manufacturers Dell, EMC, Hitachi, HP Iomega, NEC, Quantum and StorageTek. Independent hardware vendors Dot Hill Systems, Engenio Information, Intel, LeftHand, Qlogic, Seagate Technology and Sun Microsystems also support DPS.