Cohen uses the system's storage resource management functionality and file snapshot and replication features to back up large multigigabyte files for shared use by engineers using 50 servers spread throughout upstate New York.

John Webster, a storage analyst at Data Mobility Group LLC in Nashua, N.H., said that while the final release of Microsoft's Windows Server R2 is mostly "incremental," the vendor is sending a powerful storage message: that it is trying to make those features ubiquitous for Windows users.

"The only other source for this kind of thing is potentially the open-source community, and we haven't seen the open-source community have much of an impact on storage," said Webster.