By Brad Vincent

Many of us in the HP Information Management team get daily questions about when a particular platform, application, or OS version will be supported on Data Protector – or (even better!) when a specific combination of those aforementioned items will be supported.  And even for those of us closest to the product, keeping track of all the possible scenarios is a challenge sometimes.  [Any takers for MS SQL Server 2008 on x64 hardware, running on Windows 2008?  Yes, it is supported… and on Windows 2003 also.]

The recent release of Data Protector 6.1 adds support for a number of new platforms and applications, with the largest number of enhancements based around Windows 2008.  While support for Windows 2008 is not new with version 6.1, the additions related to Windows 2008 round out Data Protector’s support for Microsoft’s latest enterprise OS quite nicely.  Additions like the one mentioned above, along with Exchange online backup, cell manager, manager of managers, installation server, a Java-based GUI, and filesystem VSS support – all are now available on Windows 2008, to complement the disk and media agent support and provide a truly rich set of features and capabilities on the platform.  New versions of SAP, Oracle, Informix, and DB2 are also now supported.
 
But what about other upcoming platform enhancements, since version 6.1 has just been released?  How will those be addressed in the coming year?  I’m glad you asked.  Keeping our platform support current is a high priority for the Data Protector R&D group, and the team invests a great deal of effort in planning and tracking these additions through a monthly support matrix update process.
 
You might be thinking, wait a minute – did you say monthly?  That’s right – contrary to what you might expect, new platform and application support doesn’t always have to accompany a new software version release.  There are also what we call General Release patches that add new support in these areas on a more frequent basis.  General Release patches are provided every 3-6 months, depending on the content and urgency of the release.  In some cases, these patches can even add minor new features or capabilities to the product.
 
And even between these General Release patches, new support can also come in the form of a platform certification.  A great example of this is the certification for VMware ESX 3.5, which was just completed earlier this month.  Although 6.1 was released without ESX 3.5 on its support matrix, it has since been added and is now fully supported.  This was not done with a patch, but instead through a series of tests performed by our R&D group to ensure full compatibility.  Once this has been completed, and no problems found, the support matrix was updated.  No patch required!

The platform coverage process is an important one because it allows Data Protector to stay up to date in supporting the latest customer environments.  You can expect more enhancements this year around Windows 2008, VMware, and a variety of other areas.  For more information on the latest support coverage for Data Protector, contact your local HP sales representative or channel partner.  Or check out the support matrix on the web at www.hp.com/go/dataprotector.