• MailEssentials version 14 is available. New features: additional anti-spam engine, a new dashboard, new reporting.
• Microsoft AppV Application Virtualization podcast with Karri Alexion-Tiernan, Director in the Windows Client division.
• Virtualfuture.info has a great application virtualization comparison chart! It compares all major products.
• VMC to Hyper-V Import Tool. This tool eases the transition from Virtual Server to Hyper-V.
• The UKs first Virtualization Expo event. 1-2 Oct. 2008. With all major players. Entrance is free. Will you come too?
• MDOP 2008 R2 (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) Release to Manufacturing! Most important: It includes App-V 4.5.
• Symantec’s new Backup Exec 12.5 supports Hyper-V This is certainly an important feature. When will DPM support Hyper-V?

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In this last post of my series about Backup Exec 11d and Continuous Protection Server (CPS), I will sum up my view about Symantec’s CDP solution.

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Backup Exec 11d now offers CDP functionality for Microsoft Exchange. In this third post of my series about Backup Exec 11d, I will explain how one can backup Exchange with Symantec Continuous Protection Server (CPS).

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Last week, I introduced Symantec Continuous Protection Server (CPS). Today, I will discuss, how CPS interacts with Backup Exec 11d.

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This article is part of a series about my experience during my trial of Backup Exec 11d and Continuous Protection Server (CPS), Symantec’s CDP tools. I will discuss CPS, how Backup Exec and CPS interact, and how continuous protection of Microsoft Exchange works. Today, I will start with CPS.

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I just installed Symantec Backup Exec 11d and was somewhat surprised that there are no major changes to the core product, the good old backup tool that copies your files to tapes. Then, why did Symantec release a new version? The major changes come with Continuous Protection Server (CPS), which was originally planned as a stand-alone product. Since version 10d, CPS has become a component of Backup Exec. It seems that Symantec focuses now on Continuous Data Protection (CDP) . This raises the question, whether conventional backup tools will soon vanish from our server rooms.

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The final of Backup Exec 11d will be available on the 6th of November. It will support backups of Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server. I tested the CDP component of Backup Exec 10d a while ago and I liked it better than Microsoft’s DPM 2006. Both companies offer new versions now and it seems that Symantec is a bit faster since there is only Beta 1 of DPM v2 available at the moment. I am currently testing DPM v2 and I’ll report about it here soon. I certainly will also try Backup Exec 11d. We were about to introduce Symantec’s CDP solution, but I decided to postpone this until I tested the new versions of both tools.

Last week, I made a online backup of a virtual machine on Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 using the Advanced Open File Option of Symantec Backup Exec. Although, this is a questionable way to backup a virtual machine, I was curious if I could do the same with virtual machine under VMware Server.

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