CommVault Taps Hard-Core Techies at Microsoft 2008 Tech-Ed

In many respects, this year's Microsoft Tech-Ed represented an interesting year without the impending march of a new version of Windows or key applications. Since there were no major product announcements from Microsoft this year regarding its major product lines like Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server or Windows, users in attendance had other motivations for attending. Some were looking to deepen their knowledge base about existing products from Microsoft and its partners like CommVault, while other individuals were looking for the inside scoop as to what new features Microsoft might include in forthcoming releases of its products.

Despite the dearth of new product announcements from Microsoft, CommVault's Chief Microsoft Evangelist, Randy De Meno, found no shortage of users to talk to at the conference. Randy and the CommVault team that he had on hand are still compiling their notes from the conversations they had with the hundreds of IT professionals who stopped by CommVault's booth. Official numbers from Microsoft Tech-Ed had the tally at over 9,500 IT professionals in attendance and, to hear Randy tell it, all but 10 or 11 of them stopped by CommVault's booth.

Of course, exhibiting at Microsoft Tech-Ed is nothing new for CommVault. It has done so for at least a decade and this year, like every year, Randy found that he continued to learn as much from the users attending the conference as he hopes they learned from him.

Part of the reason Randy particularly enjoys meeting users at Microsoft Tech-Ed is that hard-core Microsoft techies flock to this event. These are the individuals who administer Microsoft's products on a daily basis and have a firm handle on the strengths of Microsoft's products but also understand its shortcomings. As a result, they can articulate at the technical level the specific challenges that they are facing and/or are beginning to encounter on a day-to-day basis. These individuals Randy specifically looks forward to meeting because in the past they have provided him significant insight as to what specific new features that the company needs to introduce into the CommVault® Simpana® software suite to meet new clients' needs as well as keep existing clients satisfied.

Randy specifically points to a number of ways that Simpana 7.0 software integrates with Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SharePoint as being a direct result of input he has received while attending past Microsoft Tech-Ed events, including enhancements to :

• Message Level Recovery. CommVault Simpana Data Management software for Microsoft Exchange Systems supports message and item level recovery. Using this feature, administrators can access the main console and drill down to recover specific messages within the Microsoft Exchange message store, usually in just a few seconds. Users can also recover Outlook extended information like Calendar Items and Contacts. This avoids the need to first recover the entire Exchange message store on a separate server and then search through it for the desired messages as other data protection products may require.
• Microsoft Exchange Server Release Independence. Many companies have used Microsoft Exchange for years and may now have backups of Exchange data stores that span one or two versions of Exchange. The challenge for companies becomes restoring data created in an earlier version of Exchange (Exchange Server 5.5, 2000 or 2003) after companies have implemented a newer version such as Exchange Server 2007. Using CommVault , companies can access older Exchange message stores and then restore those into newer versions of Exchange, even from 32-bit environments to today's 64-bit hosts . It even works in reverse as backups of Exchange 2007 message stores may also be restored into older versions of Microsoft Exchange.
• More Granular Options When Archiving Files. Four years ago one attendee requested that CommVault give them more granular options when setting file archiving policies. Specifically, this user wanted the option to override the policy that automatically archived files when they reached a certain age. Rather they wanted the option to set a policy so they could keep the most recent version of a file on production disk regardless of its age while archiving older like versions of that file. Since then, this option has now become a feature in the current CommVault Simpana software suite release.

Microsoft Tech-Ed is about more than just new product releases. While it certainly serves that purpose, it gives vendors and users alike to connect on a more personal level and can give vendors needed insight into what problems users are really having so they can innovate more quickly. It also gives users the opportunity to scope out and identify those vendors that are listening and being responsive to their needs. In some respects, no new Microsoft product announcements at Tech-Ed 2008 are almost a blessing in disguise.

Microsoft Tech-Ed is a great opportunity for users and vendors to connect. But users need to do more than connect, they need to use this show as opportunity to identify those vendors that are stepping up to the plate that solve the problems they are having today as well as anticipating the problems that they will have in the future. The fact that CommVault puts such emphasis on bringing its top developers to Tech-Ed so these connections can occur should contribute to giving users continued confidence that CommVault is as interested in solving your problems tomorrow as it is today.