Home > Storage > PowerFlex > White Papers > Dell APEX Block Storage for Azure: Protecting SQL Server Data with Dell APEX Protection Storage > Microsoft application agent for protecting SQL Server data
The combination of Microsoft application agent for Application Direct with DD series yields impressive efficiency for backup and replication, capitalizing on DD series ability to reduce storage requirements and address the breadth of today’s data protection challenges. Client-side deduplication enabled by Application Direct speeds backups by 50% and reduces bandwidth requirements up to 98%. Due to this, environments can scale higher, backup and restore faster, and reduce the load on the server during backup.
Application Direct networking features link failover, aggregation, and load balancing providing optimal network utilization while ensuring that backup jobs are complete. Application Direct gives application owners direct control of backup to DD series using Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). By giving application owners control of the recovery process through native utilities, they do not need to go through backup admins and can achieve faster recovery.