Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM)
I have a couple disparate topics to address today.
First, I was just reading Computerworld’s story about the announcement of Microsoft’s new continuous data protection product called Data Protection Manager (DPM). The Windows 2003 disk-to-disk software saves up to eight snapshots per day thereby allowing faster recovery and more save points for recovery. Read the story at http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/storage/story/0,10801,104963,00.html?source=NLT_AM&nid=104963. The beta shipped back in April of this year (http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/ArticleID/46051/46051.html).
This seems like a really effective, low-cost high-availability solution. Pricing starts at only $950 per server. You can read all about it at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/dpm/default.mspx.
Next, I wanted to mention my latest travails while on the road to the PASS 2005 Community Summit (http://www.sqlpass.org).
This is my first experience where a shower has tried to kill me. <grin> If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know that I travel a lot between my job at Quest Software (http://www.quest.com/sql_server) and my volunteer work with PASS. I’ve had some good trips and some really, really bad trips. And this one, overall, is a good trip. But it started off with a bang.
I arrived at the beautiful Gaylord Texan resort & conference center on Sunday night at about 8:00 pm. I got the opportunity to meet most of the board of director members and staff for a great dinner and time for catching up. After the meal and a drink, I decided to return to my room and freshen up before bed.
The first lesson I learned was this – do not trust a shower with more than two knobs. This shower had, in fact, four knobs and a control panel a bit above my regular line of site.
The second lesson I learned was this – do not enter a shower running with hot water until you know what every knob does.
Now the kicker is that I’m a softy when it comes to hot water. I guess it comes from growing up in a house where I was the last kid to get into the shower in the morning after my dad and my brother. Consequently, I grew up always taking luke warm showers. As an adult, I’ve always like tepid showers. So getting into this steaming hot shower was a painful shock. So a grab the closets knob and give it a twist to turn down the temperature. Bad move!
The knob I twisted immediately engaged the three other shower heads and one flexible shower wand, dowsing me in scorching water. Ieeeee! I ducked out of the way as best I could and turned the next knob. This one had the temperatures marked in tiny letters, so I was feeling relieved and lucky.
However, at this point I began to realize that the shower was steamy. Really steamy. In fact, I couldn’t hardly see my hand in front of my face. And now that I thought about it, I couldn’t hardly breath the 110o soggy air. Yes, Charlotte, this shower had a sauna built in and it was somehow programmed to go off. Ok – I’d had enough. I threw the door open and jumped out, slipping, arms and legs akimbo across the tiled bathroom floor.
After recovering my balance, I went back to the shower, spotted the control panel and got the sauna shut down. At last, I’d tamed the dragon. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Finally, I was able to enjoy a shower and get ready for bed.
So don’t forget – don’t trust a multi-knobbed, control paneled shower!
Best regards,
-Kevin
