Devin on Earth

When I last visited the topic of Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager, it was during the beta period for version 1. Although I really liked the concept DPMv1 wasn’t really a useful product, especially for me. File server protection is important for some people, but not so much for my work, and the complete lack of built-in integration with tape management meant that I was just delaying the tape problem, not removing it.

Well, now DPM v2 beta 1 is out — and wow, has this product suddenly become a LOT more compelling:

• Support for protecting and restoring Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 storage groups. Since only the modified ESE database pages are synchronized, you no longer need a backup window on your production mail servers. Exchange admins can pull recovered storage group, database, or mailbox data back into their organization.
• Support for protecting and restoring SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005. Again, since only the modified database pages are synchronized, DBAs stop having to worry about backup and restore. And they can recover database snapshots alongside the live database, as DPM gives the option of recovery with a rename — all in one simple step!
• Support for protecting and restoring SharePoint Server 2.0 and 3.0. I’m not exactly sure how this works yet, but I’ll be finding out.
• Support for protecting clustered SQL Server and Exchange configurations.
• Support for long-term tape protection within DPM. DPM now natively handles tape operations as part of a comprehensive storage policy for your protected data, meaning that it will automatically take replicas and snapshots from short-term disk storage and move them to tape when specified. When you recover protected data, you can usually recover it directly to tape if you desire.

The Exchange integration particularly intrigues me. I’ve got several questions on how it integrates with Exchange 2007, particularly with CCR and LCR; what are the advantages of using DPM + CCR/LCR instead of one or the other? And how does DPM integrate with the Recovery Storage Group? Are there any other goodies or gotchas lurking? As I find out, I’ll let you know.

I finally managed to do two things today that I've been trying to do for several years now. I've had the idea for a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast in my head for several years, and had finally gotten enough of the world-building details worked out (geography, economy and politics, character names) last year that I was able to write the first chapter. I lacked only two important things: a real title (I had a working title of "The Next Day" which I only chose because I hated the other alternatives even more) and a fair idea of exactly how it was going to end.

(Okay, if you're confused how someone could want to retell a well-known fairy tale and not know the ending, I'll take some pity on you. My original idea for the story came about because the traditional ending has never set well with me, and even though Robin McKinley's fantastic versions of the story make progress towards fixing those problems, they don't go far enough. To me, the story really gets started once the Beast is turned back into a human. That's a fundamental change in his relationship with Beauty. And someone that powerful/rich doesn't go into a major spell like that without leaving a power vacuum in the surrounding lands; what about that? Nobody I'm aware of even attempts to address those implications, which to me makes the story less satisfying; I want the stories I read to give me some insight about me in particular and humanity in general, and the fairy tale is in the end a bit of wish fulfillment fluff.)

Thanks to the fact that I had to sit in traffic coming home from downtown Seattle today, I finally got jogged onto the right train of thought to solve the ending problem. I'd had all of the elements and ingredients for some time and even had a gut instinct as to the "correct" outcome for my story, but I'd never been happy with that ending because I didn't know why it was correct. Now I do — and now that I do it's clearly the only correct ending for the way I've set the story up.

Tonight, once I pulled out my laptop and wrote up my notes on the new ending, working out the minor logistics problems I encountered, I forced myself to apply that same sense of "Eureka!" to the naming problem. Words mean things, dammit, and names are special words. I find it nearly impossible to write without the correct names of things to work with; likewise, once I know the right names, the characters and stories come alive.

Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I am proud to introduce to you the novel-in-writing once known as "The Next Day" but now called "Truth and Beauty."

The first four Word-format Exchange 2007 guides are now available from Microsoft Downloads. Don’t bother looking at the Exchange 2007 site for them yet; they’re not linked there (but I’m sure the website will be updated within the next few days). These guides are aimed at helping you deploy Exchange 2007 into organizations of varying size:

• Deploying a Standard Exchange Server 2007 Organization
• Deploying a Simple Exchange Server 2007 Organization
• Deploying a Large Exchange Server 2007 Organization
• Deploying a Complex Exchange Server 2007 Organization

I’ve not had a chance to look these over yet — I’m busy with another project — but I really like the fact that they’re starting to give focused guidance depending on the size/type of organization you’re intending to deploy. There’s a lot of FUD floating around out there that Exchange 2007 is no longer aimed at the SMB market, a lot of it predicated on the licensing changes, renewed emphasis on Hosted Exchange services, and the continuing angst over the 64-bit hardware issue. This kind of guidance, easily packaged for printing out, might help combat that FUD.