"Now, if they do lose that [branch office] file server, we can use the distributed file service and point users straight to here," he said. "The downtime for end-users is virtually nothing, while we're recovering the branch server that crashed."

Performing incremental backups of file data automatically to the company's main data center has greatly reduced administrative overhead and data losses, Fletcher said, although he could not say by exactly how much.

"The only thing I think really needs to be addressed by Microsoft is biometrics," said Jeff Cohen, CIO of DestiNY USA , a proposed 800-acre retail complex in upstate New York that will be powered entirely by environmentally friendly energy sources, such as wind turbines and solar panels.

Cohen has been beta-testing Storage Server R2 for six months and likes how it integrates with a 22TB SAN powered by a high-end EMC DMX1000 array. So far, he said, there have been no problems with the software's ability to discover and monitor all of the components on the SAN.

Cohen has also used the software's storage resource management functions and praised its ability to automatically backup snapshots of files back to a central data center and share large multigigabyte files. He said he prefers Microsoft's utilities to those from EMC Corp. because he has been assured that new version of the software should work smoothly with his setup. Cohen said he's grappled with EMC's storage management software in the past, and while he does finally get that software to work, it often takes an EMC engineer on site to help.