NEWZ: Microsoft To Enter Enterprise Backup Arena

[.Nut]

• 
  Microsoft Takes Disk-based Backup For A Spin
  
  Taking another step into data storage, Microsoft on Friday unveiled software for backing up files on disk-based systems.
  
  The product, dubbed System Center Data Protection Manager, is designed to tempt more companies to try disk-based backup and recovery through a tried-and-true tactic: a cut-rate price.
  
  Microsoft said that with its software and an accompanying server computer, it will cost customers less than $5,000 to protect 1 terabyte of data, compared with competing systems that cost $50,000.
  
  "We want every company to be able to afford and use disk-based backup," Ben Matheson, group product manager for Data Protection Manager, said in an interview. "We're going to be very disruptive to the market."

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5779376.html?tag=nl.e589

 

[i]

This is Microsoft, so there's one correction:

"We're going to be very disruptive to the data."

 

[ddrueding]

I'm certainly interested in what they have to offer. I've been doing disk-based backups for years at most of my companies (reinforced by DVD media taken off-site). I'm currently using MS Backup (nothing wrong with it) but am interested to see what they can do.

 

[Fushigi]

Microsoft said that with its software and an accompanying server computer, it will cost customers less than $5,000 to protect 1 terabyte of data, compared with competing systems that cost $50,000.

An LTO2 tape drive is about $1700 and does 200GB native; 400+ compressed. Cartridges are under $100 each. Add a SCSI card and backing up a TB should cost about $2200 + software. Backup speed is around 275GB/hour. I think backup software can be had for a tad less than $2800. And it doesn't have to eat more rack space as MS' extra server would.

 

[blakerwry]

you could build a server using 4 x 300gb disks in RAID 5 for about $1000 of redundant disk based storage.

I recently built a backup server at work with 200GB of storage space with linux, parts we had lying around, and a $70 hard drive.

 

[Fushigi]

What do you do for off-site storage?

 

[Mercutio]

Four 250GB disks at this point cost MAYBE $500. Another $350 for a SATA RAID controller. Spend the rest on a hot spare. That's $1000.

What's Microsoft doing with the other $4000?

As far as off site storage for disk-based systems, one of my clients uses a SATA enclosure and some extra disk trays. Every day, he stops by his server and pops in a different 160GB drive to store that day's backup. One week's rotation, six days' worth stored in a different location. There's maybe 70GB of "critical" business data for the company, so at least for the next couple years, that's a viable solution.

 

[ddrueding]

My favorite disk-based offsite storage I had installed last year. 2 miles of 0.5mm fiber running between 2 offices at gigabit speeds. Each office has a TB server (about $2500 at the time) that backs up the other one. Really awesome.

 

[Platform]

What's Microsoft doing with the other $4000?...

We're talking sophisticated backup software for Fibre Channel SAN (and presumably iSCSI/IP-SAN) environments -- high levels of error checking, synthetic full backups, large media database capability, device support, etc. The shit's expensive as hell.

Of course, *anything* at all to do with Fibre Channel will cost you several times what it's really worth. It's a major cash cow for a handful of corporations. I'm almost surprised someone isn't charging us a fee just to utter the words Fibre Channel.

 

[Mercutio]

Well, they don't SAY that.

$5k for a SANish solution is very inexpensive, how's it going to happen without the hardware?

 

[Fushigi]

how's it going to happen without the hardware?

Maybe it's all virtual. :lol:

 

[Splash]

$5k for a SANish solution is very inexpensive, how's it going to happen without the hardware?

I was only talking about the software side of things (above). Hardware is extra.

Once M$ has device driver support for standalone tape drives, tape libraries, optical libraries, virtual tape libraries, and RAID arrays, the software will sell itself. M$ isn't going to mess with selling or re-selling such hardware.

 

[Mercutio]

Heh. Maybe Microsoft will just include proper volume management in their OS...