The decision to support Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server Continuation of our series on InMage’s support of Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. Part 1: InMage Scout protects Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007, but document management is not new to InMage Part 2: InMage uses two agents to support the confluence in Document Management systems The decision to support Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server continuous data protection was very challenging in prior versions. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 was a short lived document management/basic content services system based on Microsoft’s Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) used by Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft SharePoint Portal Sever 2003 was a reworked version of the 2001 edition and required Microsoft SQL instead of ESE. The downside was that SharePoint Portal Server 2003 didn’t support snapshots or any type of recovery other than whole system recovery. SharePoint Portal Sever was generally unprotected from 2003 through 2007 and couldn’t be effectively supported in a disaster recovery/business continuity scenario. Thankfully Microsoft resolved that issue in SharePoint Portal Server 2007 by releasing a VSS writer for Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. Earlier this year I explained what a VSS Writer did and how VSS works in a two part series Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) for Continuous Data Protectio (Part 1) and Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) for Continuous Data Protectio (Part 2). From Part 1 Microsoft’s VSS works by using three pieces a requester, writer and provider. If you have heard about this, then skip to the last paragraph and wait for part 2 due later this week. The requester is your traditional backup solution. Requester’s send collection inquiries to the application you want to protect. This application must understand the collection inquiry sent to it by the requester and needs a writer designed to support the application data and data types. The writer is written by the application developers, not the backup vendor, to ensure the most stable and consistent recoveries. InMage immediately supports the application because of the VSS writer included with Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007. The VSS framework makes it very easy for a VSS requester to support virtually all new VSS writers without issue. InMage supports the requester framework. InMage, using the previous knowledge of document management, identified the confluence of VX Agent volume replication, FX Agent file replication, FX Agent scheduling and VSS requester/writer support to deliver a comprehensive Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2007 solution as of the third quarter of 2007. Rajeev Atluri, CTO of InMage, told me that the development and product management team moved from an internal Wiki to SharePoint Portal Server in an attempt to better understand the day to day underpinnings of SharePoint Portal Server. Such a great move for a great company to use the products they develop..