Last year storage systems companies made a concentrated push to reach SMBs, and in early 2007 software vendors are following their lead with an eye on protecting Windows. (See NetApp Zeroes In on SMBs, HP Builds SANs for SMBs, and Dell, Microsoft Team on NAS-Plus-iSCSI.)

We're in the midst of flurry of data protection software specifically aimed at protecting Windows servers and applications. Two such products were launched this week, with at least two more on the way:

So have data protection vendors just discovered Windows shops need DR, too?

"We're into a new era," analyst Greg Schulz of The StorageIO Group. "What has been standard practice in large enterprises is coming down into smaller businesses. Now we're seeing Windows deployed in mission-critical environments, just like UNIX has been used for years. And today, mission critical does not have to equate to enterprise."

Another analyst says SMBs often have a greater need for disaster recovery and business continuity but can't afford the types of products and services enterprises use for DR.

"Array-based replication is not affordable to SMBs," says Dianne McAdam of the Clipper Group. "Yet a lot of small businesses are not prepared for disaster recovery, and they get hurt the worst. They lose their data, and they can't re-open."

DataCore's SANmotion is not limited to Windows, but CEO George Teixeira says he expects most of his customers to be running Windows as well as VMware, and using iSCSI or direct attached storage. He says that is also the typical customer for DataCore's SANmelody customer, but the new package does not scale to the midrange.

"It's a lot of the same code as our SANmelody, but we've restricted these packages to work with 3 Tbytes on a protected server and with 3 Tbytes on a server at a remote location," Teixeira says.

DataCore's SMB package consists of 3-Tbyte SANmelody licenses for the main and remote servers; SANmotion migration software for $7,998; and one-year service and support for $2,000. Fibre Channel support and snapshots are available for separate licenses.

— Dave Raffo, News Editor, Byte and Switch