Archive for January 2010
Disaster Recovery in a Virtual World
Virtualization can bring a lot of business benefits – lower cost and greater flexibility, in particular. But it can also pose some problems. In particular, how easy or difficult is it to protect virtualized systems and data?
That’s where the award-winning ShadowProtect line of disk-based backup and disaster recovery software can help. ShadowProtect Desktop, ShadowProtect Server, ShadowProtect Small Business Server and ShadowProtect IT Edition are all compatible with virtual systems – such as VMware or Microsoft Virtual Server.
Not only does ShadowProtect provide Hardware Independent Restore (H.I.R.), it can also convert physical machines to virtual machines (P2V), virtual to virtual (V2V) and virtual to physical.
If you’re trying to find out how to use ShadowProtect with your virtual machines, we have a lot of information in the StorageCraft Support Center. There you’ll find all kinds of tools to help you protect your virtual world. For example, we have a guide that will take you through the process of restoring a virtual machine. There are also articles that show you how to perform H.I.R. or how to use VMware Server or VMware Converter as disaster recovery.
To find out more, visit the StorageCraft Web site and type “virtual” into the search box.
Disaster Recovery in the Cloud
StorageCraft is partnering with another company that offers cloud computing: gCLOUD3. gCLOUD3 gives solution providers a way to offer their customers complete cloud computing. In fact, CRN is jumping on the bandwagon, naming gCLOUD3 one of its “20 Coolest Cloud Platform Vendors.” Make sure you check out the complete CRN list of cool cloud computing platforms. You’ll see that gCLOUD3 is in great company.
Cloud computing is one of those buzz phrases that is getting a lot of attention in the media these days – and for good reason. It is a good way to assure business continuity no matter what happens to your business because you can access your data anywhere in the world. That makes for a great business model for backup and disaster recovery, in particular.
If you haven’t looked at ways to offer your customers some sort of offsite backup and disaster recovery, now is the time to do it. The ShadowProtect line of award-winning backup and disaster recovery solutions for Windows systems and data can help you accomplish this. That’s because ShadowProtect is complementary to all sorts of virtual solutions, allowing you to migrate your physical systems to virtual ones – and back again. This means you can have complete server backup onsite and offsite. You can failover in the cloud, if you need to, and access your data anywhere in the world. Sounds like a pretty safe solution for data backup.
StorageCraft Partners with gCLOUD3
DRAPER, Utah, U.S.A. – Jan. 26, 2010 – StorageCraft Technology Corporation, a provider of innovative disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops, today announced its partnership with gCLOUD3, a leader in private cloud computing in the SMB marketplace. The partnership allows solution providers to offer a complete turn-key private cloud and disaster recovery solution to their customers.
The gCLOUD3 platform offers an innovative fully functioning IT environment for businesses – giving resellers the opportunity to deploy virtual servers, virtual desktops, virtual firewalls and routers for their customers onsite or in the cloud. In addition, gCLOUD3 uses ShadowProtect™, the award-winning line of backup and disaster recovery software to back up all of the virtual servers and client data automatically.
“ShadowProtect technology allows us to backup all virtual servers and their data,” said Michael Fraser, director, gCLOUD3. “We can backup the servers and data onsite to provide end users with rapid recovery, and offsite at our data center for disaster recovery and virtualization. Without ShadowProtect, we wouldn’t be able to offer disaster recovery to our clients.”
In addition, gCLOUD3 uses the Hardware Independent Restore (H.I.R.) technology in ShadowProtect to migrate physical machines to virtual.
“HIR makes it very easy to complete migrations, whether they are local, or whether they are to an offsite location,” said Curt James, vice president of marketing and business development at StorageCraft. “ShadowProtect makes it simple to migrate Windows systems from physical to virtual and back again.”
To learn more about gCLOUD3 and the gCLOUD3 platform, please visit: www.gCLOUD3.com. For more information about ShadowProtect, or to find out how to become a StorageCraft partner, please visit: www.storagecraft.com.
About StorageCraft Technology Corporation
StorageCraft Technology Corporation provides innovative disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops. StorageCraft delivers software products that reduce downtime, improve security and stability for systems and data and lower the total cost of ownership for servers, desktops and laptops. www.storagecraft.com
About gCloud3
gCLOUD3 is a cutting edge technology company providing both turn-key private cloud platforms and integrated disaster recovery, backup, and network appliances to savvy, cutting edge managed service providers and I.T. companies. gCLOUD3’s primary goal is to help VARs standardize their client’s infrastructure to achieve maximum business up time and efficiency for themselves and their clients. gCLOUD3 is a veteran owned business based in Las Vegas, Nevada.
www.gcloud3.com
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ShadowProtect is a trademark of StorageCraft Technology Corporation. Other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Keeping Exchange Up and Running
Managing Exchange servers can be a difficult prospect for many small and medium sized businesses (SMBs). Smaller companies may not have the resources for a dedicated Exchange administrator, even though it’s the application of choice for most enterprises of any size these days. But backing up, restoring, searching or migrating Exchange database (EDB) files isn’t exactly a voluntary proposition. Systems administrators have to find a way to manage Exchange – or they may find business grinding to a standstill.
Exchange backup has unique challenges because not only is it important to backup the entire server, but it is also important to have a way to restore mailboxes and individual e-mail messages and attachments quickly and easily. This has been a complex problem because many Exchange backup solutions don’t address all requirements from complete restore of an Exchange database as well as the granular recovery of an individual e-mail message or e-mail attachment.
Another issue for SMBs is complying with regulatory or legal demands regarding the production of e-mail records. Searching e-mail databases for individual messages based on specific criteria can be an incredibly time-consuming task that most small businesses can ill afford. Restoring individual databases, then painstakingly searching for keywords, messages to certain domains or recipients, messages sent on specified dates or with specified subjects can take days – or even weeks – to complete.
In addition, upgrading to a new Exchange server can frustrate IT staff with its complexity and potential for disaster. The migration process can place a heavy load on SMBs with limited IT resources.
StorageCraft has just released a new solution to address these challenges: ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange. ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange provides fast and reliable recovery, migration and simplified management of Exchange mailboxes, e-mail messages and e-mail attachments. IT administrators can recover individual mailboxes or multiple mailboxes directly from Exchange Server backups (EDB files) and migrate to new Exchange Servers with ease.
Exchange has become a business-critical tool, one administrators cannot afford to have down. To download a white paper outlining the issues that arise from Exchange management, why they are important for SMBs to address and how to resolve them while maximizing business continuity and minimizing IT resources necessary to accomplish the demands of maintaining Exchange servers, click here. We’ve also put together a product tour to give you an idea of how ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange works.
Business Continuity
It’s called “disaster recovery” because it can help you get access to your systems and data following catastrophes of all kinds. But DR can also keep your business going following those everyday mishaps – something as simple as accidentally deleting a critical file or as complex as seeing your RAID server crash. Having a way to keep your business going in the event of a minor accident should be part of your overall disaster recovery plan.
That’s where StorageCraft solutions can help. The ShadowProtect line of award-winning backup and disaster recovery software for Windows systems and data helps you have a worry-free computing environment. Once you install ShadowProtect and create backup schedules on your servers and desktops, you have a copy of everything, in case you ever need it. With incremental (or delta) backups that you can take every 15 minutes, you can even ensure you have copies of minor changes you make throughout the day. Just need a specific file? You right click on the backup image file from your last backup, mount it as the next available drive letter, then simply navigate to the folder with the missing file. Now you just copy it – or drag and drop it to where you want it.
Disaster recovery software can make the difference between something being just a minor hiccup in a busy day, or a major problem that brings business to a screeching halt. Find out more about ShadowProtect solutions and see if they can help your business continuity.
Granular Recovery in Microsoft Exchange Environments
By: Deni Connor
Principal Analyst, Storage Strategies NOW
StorageCraft’s announcement of software that recovers and migrates Microsoft Exchange mailboxes and message stores is significant in that it adds essential data protection capabilities for SMB’s business-critical Exchange environments.
Market impact
Microsoft Exchange in the past few years has been viewed by many organizations as a business-critical application. End-users and business executives use Exchange as their personal database of contacts and as a chronicle of business events. Users spend as much as two hours each day with e-mail activities. Knowing that such a great deal of time is spent with e-mail and that it is such an important part of any business, it behooves an organization to protect their Microsoft Exchange environments and ensure that individual e-mails and mailboxes can be recovered quickly and easily.
To backup Exchange databases, many Exchange administrators perform two Exchange backups – one, a full backup of the database, and a second, brick-level backup of individual mailboxes – a time-consuming process, which is unnecessary, with the correct tools.
Further, many IT organizations are involved in migrations from Microsoft Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 – a process they find usurious and problematic — often necessitating days or even weeks of time for Exchange administrators and downtime for the Exchange message repository. Often the migration process is feared and put off because of the nightmare situations a migration can cause.
The solution
StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange (GRE) allows IT administrators both the capability of an entire backup of the Exchange database and a brick-level recovery, without the need for creating two backups. It backs up Exchange database files (EDBs) and log files that contain the records of changes made to the database and what is sent and received since the last backup. GRE, in combination with ShadowProtect Server or ShadowProtect SBS (which may be bundled with GRE), takes a point-in-time copy of the Exchange server. Once the image format is mounted and a drive letter assigned, the administrator can launch GRE from a Windows desktop PC and search for specific mailboxes, e-mails and attachments. All this can be done without a live Exchange server being present.
Once the administrator determines the deleted email, mailbox or attachment they want to recover, GRE provides a mechanism for retrieving them to the live production server without taking the server down. Alternately, the messages can be saved to a .PST file, as well.
Migrating from one version of Exchange to another is also an easy process with GRE. Administrators simply bring the new Exchange server online and drag and drop e-mail boxes from the old server to the new one.
SSG-NOW Assessment
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange complements StorageCraft’s ShadowProtect Server and its ShadowProtect Small Business Server to give small and mid-size businesses a comprehensive recovery environment for their business-critical applications and file servers. The product, which works with all versions of Windows, also offers reports that help administrators manage the Exchange environment – deleting redundant emails and attachments and minimizing storage utilization. In addition, it’s search capabilities allow administrators to specify criteria for the messages or mailboxes they want to retrieve, making the product a shoo-in for SMBs that must recover and protect their Exchange environments.
For more information visit:
StorageCraft.com: Granular Recovery For Exchange
StorageCraft Releases ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange
StorageCraft is adding to its award-winning line of backup and disaster recovery software. Today it’s announcing the availability of ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange. The software allows IT administrators to restore individual mailboxes, e-mail messages and attachments from their Exchange server backups, without the need to restore the entire Exchange database. ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange will speed up Exchange migrations and simplify searches for individual messages based on specified criteria.
You can read more about ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange in the news release. Or check out the ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange landing page for additional product information, such as the user guide, data sheet, white paper, product tour and product scenarios.
StorageCraft Releases ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange
Disaster recovery software provides IT administrators a simple way to restore or migrate Exchange mailboxes, e-mail messages and attachments
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DRAPER, Utah, U.S.A. – Jan. 19, 2010 – StorageCraft Technology Corporation, a provider of innovative disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops, today announced the availability of StorageCraft ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange™, the latest version in the award-winning ShadowProtect™ line of backup and disaster recovery software for Windows systems and data. ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange gives administrators the ability to restore individual Exchange mailboxes, e-mail messages or e-mail attachments, minimizing downtime following a major or minor crisis.
In conjunction with ShadowProtect Server™ or ShadowProtect Small Business Server™, administrators can restore entire mailboxes or specific information in each mailbox – such as individual e-mail messages and attachments or specific files and folders – without the need to restore the entire Exchange database. They can opt to restore the messages and information directly to their production Exchange server or to a new or existing PST file. Restoring an Exchange mailbox or e-mail message takes moments, rather than hours to complete.
“Managing Exchange can be a difficult task and there is a great need for a tool that allows small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) the ability to do this without hiring an Exchange administrator,” said Deni Connor, principal analyst with Storage Strategies NOW, a research firm focusing on storage technologies. “Technology like ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange can allow resellers and SMB administrators to provide quick recovery of a lost e-mail message or migration to a new Exchange server without the need to hire Exchange administrators.”
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange also allows IT professionals to rapidly migrate to a new Exchange server. Moving users from the old server to the new version of Exchange is a simple “drag and drop” procedure.
In addition, searching Exchange backups – EDB files – to find messages based on specific criteria is a simple process. Administrators may use the search capability in ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange when e-discovery or other corporate necessity requires a search of the Exchange database based on keywords, messages sent to or from a specific domain, messages within a specified time period or messages with specific subject matter.
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange will simplify the task of restoring, migrating or searching an Exchange database. It will save hours of work and help administrators maintain business continuity.
“I had two different customers that deleted all of their contacts in Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007,” said Caleb Roberts, vice president at Data1st, Inc. “We were able to use ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange to export all of their contacts from the last ShadowProtect backup image to a PST file. I was then able to import them back into the users’ Exchange accounts. The process was simple and my customers had minimal down time.”
Additional Features
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange also simplifies Exchange management by quickly creating reports on Exchange usage. Administrators can run reports on messages by mailbox, messages by date, attachment statistics and domain statistics. Reports may be viewed or saved for later use.
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange has the following benefits:
*Recover mailboxes, e-mail messages and e-mail attachments to an Exchange server or a PST file.
*Restore or migrate individual mailboxes quickly and easily.
*Search individual mailboxes or e-mail messages for specific keywords based on user-specified criteria.
*Migrate users to a new version of Exchange with ease.
*Generate comprehensive reports for simplified Exchange management.
“Our partners and customers need an easy way to rapidly recover individual Exchange mailboxes or e-mail messages without performing a second backup,” said Brandon Nordquist, vice president of product management at StorageCraft. “ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange uses an existing ShadowProtect backup image of your Exchange server to perform brick-level recovery of entire mailboxes or e-mail messages and attachments. You don’t waste resources performing two kinds of backups and the whole process is quick and simple.”
Pricing and Availability
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange is available as a bundle with ShadowProtect Server or ShadowProtect Small Business Server, or as an upgrade for existing ShadowProtect Server or ShadowProtect Small Business Server licensees.
ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange is available from authorized StorageCraft distributors and value-added resellers (VARs). Volume discounts are available.
For additional information about StorageCraft ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange, or to learn more about volume licensing, please email discounts@storagecraft.com, call +1 801 545-4700 or visit: www.storagecraft.com/ShadowProtectGRE.
About StorageCraft Technology Corporation
StorageCraft Technology Corporation provides innovative disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops. StorageCraft delivers software products that reduce downtime, improve security and stability for systems and data and lower the total cost of ownership for servers, desktops and laptops.
www.storagecraft.com
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ShadowProtect, ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange, ShadowProtect Server and ShadowProtect Small Business Server are trademarks of StorageCraft Technology Corporation. Other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Desktop Backup Tips
With backup software like ShadowProtect, it’s very easy to have a copy of everything on your hard drive. But what’s the best way to make sure you’re backing up what you need to? For PC users, here are some tips that will give you a little peace of mind.
Once you install ShadowProtect, it’s a good idea to set a backup schedule right away, which is very easy using the Backup Wizard. Open the Backup Wizard, click Next, then check the volume (drive) you want backed up. For most people, this will be the C:\ volume — the primary drive with your system, programs and data. If you have your hard drive partitioned to separate your personal files and data, you’ll want to back up that secondary partition, too. Click Next.
Now you need to choose a location to hold your backup images — such as a removable disk drive that you’re dedicating to hold your images or over a network to a user folder. No matter where your location is, you’ll need to make sure you have enough disk space to hold your backup image files. Click the Browse button and navigate to the specific backup location; you may want to create a backup folder for this purpose (e.g.: JanesLaptop, JohnsBackupImages). Click Next.
Now you can specify your backup schedule. It’s a good idea to take a full backup every week and additional incremental backups through the workday, so click Weekly and click on a day and choose a time for your Full backup. Now choose how often you’d like to make incremental images which will backup the changes between your full backups. For most people, hourly incrementals is sufficient. Once you’ve created the schedule you like, click Next.
On the Options screen, you can choose to add a password to your image files, compress your image files or choose Advanced options. One thing you might want to do is click on the Retention tab and create a Retention policy, which will help free up storage, if your space is limited.
After you’ve made your selections, click Next. You’ll see a summary of your Backup Job, so check it over and see if you need to make any changes. Check the Execute Now box to run your initial backup right away.
Now you’re set. If you have any questions along the way, make sure you consult the ShadowProtect User Guide or visit the StorageCraft Support Center. You can also find additional information about ShadowProtect backup software at www.ShadowProtect.com.