NetApp SnapManager 4.0 for Exchange Server 2007 now available

Network Appliance, Inc today announced general availability of two software products in support of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

The availability of NetApp SnapManager 4.0 for Exchange Server and NetApp Single Mailbox Recovery 4.2, a near-instantaneous backup and recovery software solution for Exchange Server 2007, provides customers with enterprise-class backup, recovery and restoration solutions.

NetApp SnapManager 4.0 for Exchange, which supports both NetApp Fibre Channel (FC) and iSCSI-based IP SAN (storage area network) solutions, helps customers dramatically reduce the administrative overhead of backing up Exchange Server databases.

With the availability of these products, NetApp is helping Exchange Server 2007 customers achieve near-instantaneous, granular recovery of Exchange Server data without a prohibitive - and expensive - increase in storage capacity needs.

Located in Galveston, Texas, the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) is a major academic health centre with six state-of-the-art hospitals and is dedicated to health science education, patient care, research and community service. To support its 12 300 Exchange Server users, UTMB uses NetApp SnapManager for Exchange on an enterprise-intensive NetApp Fibre Channel SAN solution.

"It's critical to our business that we protect valuable medical and research data captured in Exchange Server," said Brian Grimm, Software System Staff Specialist at UTMB. "Our NetApp SnapManager for Exchange solution, which integrates NetApp SnapMirror for disaster recovery, helps reduce costs, simplify our data management, and increase data availability within our Exchange Server environment - with no negative performance impact."

NetApp SnapManager 4.0 for Exchange and Single Mailbox Recovery 4.2 software dramatically boost the productivity of both administrators and physical storage assets in the following ways:

* Maximised data availability: NetApp provides near-instantaneous backups and rapid Exchange Server recovery, with minimal capacity overhead. In addition, NetApp SnapMirror software provides simple, flexible and cost-effective snapshot replication and mirroring for easy-to-use disaster recovery of Exchange Server data.
* Simplified data management: NetApp addresses the storage management productivity challenge with automated data management, rapid storage provisioning, and the ability to backup and restore hundreds of databases residing on a single Exchange Server installation.
* Rapid Exchange Item-Level Recovery: NetApp Single Mailbox Recovery software provides rapid recovery of mailbox data from any existing snapshot backups using administrator-specified criteria, up to and including individual e-mails and attachments.
* Reduced costs: NetApp helps consolidate Exchange Server data and maximise storage resource utilisation with its unique FlexVol technology, available through NetApp Data ONTAP 7G software.

Additionally, NetApp Global Services (NGS) offers professional and support services that complement these NetApp software offerings by minimising disruption, augmenting or offloading IT staff, and rapidly designing and implementing a NetApp-enabled Exchange Server environment.

NGS offers solutions for Exchange Server environments that scale from installation to turnkey enterprise deployments depending on customer needs. NGS resources are Microsoft certified and have experience in industry verticals such as financial services and government sector.

The service offerings are organised as components and include Exchange Server consolidation, migration, backup/recovery and disaster recovery. The consolidation and migration services assist customers in moving to current versions of Exchange Server. The backup and recovery services leverage tiered-storage best practices to implement high availability solutions for safeguarding data and enabling near real-time data restoration. NGS disaster recovery services feature highly robust clustering and replication solutions that protect data assets within and across data centres. All of the Exchange Server service components share a structured implementation methodology that follow proven project management concepts and emphasise knowledge transfer to IT operations staff. For more information on NetApp services and support, visit www.netapp.com/support.

"E-mail is a mission-critical application, and organisations demand a highly available and reliable solution," said Kim Akers, general manager, Unified Communications, Microsoft. "We are pleased that companies like NetApp are providing solutions that will complement the enhancements delivered in Exchange Server 2007, which will help IT administrators get more out of their hardware and networking investments, make deployment easier and more flexible, while giving administrators more time for value-added work."

NetApp is a member of the Microsoft Technology Adoption Programme (TAP) for Exchange Server 2007, helping customers leverage the powerful capabilities of Exchange Server 2007 and NetApp storage solutions. NetApp SnapManager 4.0 for Exchange supports Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) for high availability and Microsoft Multipath I/O for resiliency in FC and IP SAN environments. NetApp storage arrays are listed in the Windows Server Catalog, demonstrating their compatibility with Microsoft products. For more details on NetApp SnapManager software, visit www.netapp.com/products/software/snapmanager.html.