StorageCraft Company Information
Backup software company grows team, revenue
StorageCraft hires 100th employee, earns Fast 50 status in Utah
DRAPER, Utah, U.S.A. – August 25, 2011 –StorageCraft Technology Corporation, the provider of best in class backup, disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops, recently hit the 100-employee mark, creating the largest team since the company’s inception in 2004.
However, it’s not just the number that matters; it’s the substance behind it. A growing team at StorageCraft equates to better customer support, increased backup and disaster recovery software development, and increased ability of the sales and marketing teams to respond to the needs of the growing number of StorageCraft’s global channel partners as well.
StorageCraft has hired people for its product development, marketing, sales, and technical support teams in the last year, resulting in an employee count that has doubled in the last 12 months. Although StorageCraft hired its 100th employee from within the United States, the expanding team provides critical support to the company’s growing global footprint that includes a presence in most European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan.
A bigger, stronger team translates to a growing bottom line, too. Utah Business named StorageCraft to its Fast 50 list in 2011, recognizing it as one of the 50 fastest-growing companies in the state of Utah, based on a 5-year snapshot of growth percentage between 2005 and 2010.
“Our goal is to build a team of smart, highly-engaged, and proven performers who know how to work hard and achieve success. We grow into a stronger company with every new addition, and this is just an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the fact that people really do come first at our company,” said Tracee Comstock, director of human resources at StorageCraft.
Its award-winning flagship product, ShadowProtect, provides business continuity solutions for small- and medium-sized companies around the world. ShadowProtect is available in Desktop, Server, Small Business Server, IT, Granular Recovery for Exchange, Managed Service Providers, and Virtual editions.
About StorageCraft Technology Corporation
StorageCraft Technology Corporation provides best in class backup, 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. For more information, visit www.storagecraft.com.
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StorageCraft offers free download to businesses in Japan
Like so many people around the world, we were moved by the tragic events caused by the Touhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We felt strongly that we should do whatever we could to help the people affected by the disaster.
Since StorageCraft makes disaster recovery products for small and medium-sized businesses, it made sense for us to offer our ShadowProtect IT Edition software as a free download to businesses in Japan that need help in recovering their IT systems and data. Also, as rolling power blackouts continue in areas of Japan beyond those affected directly by the earthquake and tsunami, the software helps businesses protect their Windows servers and workstations from system failure or data loss resulting from planned and unplanned power losses
It’s important to us to cultivate ties to the communities of our customers; when our customers suffer from the effects of tragic events, so do we. We have a special place in our hearts for the people of Japan, as we are in the process of establishing an office there and have just hired our first local employee. We feel that giving back to the communities where we live and work also helps our own family and friends.
We’ll continue to do what we can to support and care for those who are in need, and we wish the people of Japan all the best for a safe and speedy recovery.
- Ken Kilgore, senior director, Asia Pacific
StorageCraft Training Event: Disaster Recovery
This week, we’re offering a brand new training Webinar that focuses on simplifying disaster recovery. This technical training event is called, “Architect simple solutions with ShadowProtect®.”
It may seem daunting, but Disaster Recovery really doesn’t have to be complicated. In this online training seminar, we’ll walk you through a basic DR architecture. We show you how to provide local and remote protection of critical systems and data. We’ll explore fast recovery options that are already available in ShadowProtect. This training will also cover features like HeadStart Restore® and VirtualBoot™.
To sign up, visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/262296513.
StorageCraft ShadowProtect is Product of the Year Finalist
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StorageCraft ShadowProtect is on an elite list today. It’s a finalist for Storage magazine and SearchStorage.com’s Product of the Year Awards for 2010.
The award is pretty prestigious, and it’s truly an honor to be named a finalist in the backup and disaster recovery software and services category. Everyone always says that, but we truly mean it.
The winners will be announced in the February issue of Storage.
StorageCraft Asia-Pacific Teams with VMvault to Help Flood Victims
StorageCraft Asia Pacific is working with hosting services specialist VMvault to give help to businesses hurt by the massive flooding in Queensland, Australia. The two are setting up temporary disaster recovery centers for ShadowProtect customers who are flood victims. News reports indicate thousands of SMBs will have lost their servers and potentially their data, so StorageCraft Asia Pacific is working with local ISPs and hosting companies to donate data center storage. The first to volunteer is VMvault, which is donating server space.
VMvault spokesman Radek Tkaczyk said, “Our servers are high and dry in Wharf Street, Brisbane, availing our clients with uninterrupted access to their virtual servers, as we are equipped with multiple redundancies in all primary systems including power, UPS, network and cooling. We also have an onsite generator our building’s roof, with 48 hours’ worth of fuel. We are pleased to be able to offer server capacity on our primary and secondary clusters to the flood victims to get their businesses back up and running with a VMvault virtual server, free of charge, as our hearts go out to all those affected by the Queensland floods.”
You can read more about it on Wayne Small’s SBSFAQ blog.
Expanded Sales and Technical Training
The new year is off to an excellent start at StorageCraft. We’re hiring new sales and support staff and we’re expanding our training to help you more. We’ll be revamping and revising things over the next few months, but starting this week we’re offering brand-new training sessions.
This Thursday, we’re beginning our weekly series offering in-depth technical product training for StorageCraft solutions. This week’s Webinar is: “Working with StorageCraft Support: The fastest path to resolution.” We will also offer our sales training introduction, “How to Win More Business with a Better Disaster Recovery Solution” on Wednesday. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll have addition technical and sales training sessions.
To learn more about upcoming Webinars or to sign up for a specific training event, please visit the StorageCraft Events Center. And if you have a suggestion for a specific type of training event that you’d like to have, please let us know.
Free Product Training: ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise
StorageCraft released a brand new product in our ShadowProtect line this year: ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise. It has some features that allow you to replicate your backup image files on-site and off-site. It also lets you pre-stage a server backup as a virtual machine, nearly eliminating restore windows and drastically reducing recovery time objectives. So in practical terms, how does that help you and your customers?
Next week, StorageCraft is offering a free technical product training Webinar to help you better understand the features in ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise and how to use them. This technical deep-dive will look at image replication, HeadStart Restore, plus all of the management capabilities like image consolidation, backup verification and notification features.
Register for this complimentary Webinar right away, because space is limited.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/498164689
Unravel the Mysteries of ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise
Thursday, December 9
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. MST (2:00 EST, 1:00 CST, 11:00 PST)
Success Story: Mann Made Group
If you’re a solution provider with customers in remote locations, you know what it’s like to deal with the special challenges associated with out-of-the-way places. In the middle of the night, in bad weather — sometimes even on a normal day — it’s hard to ensure business continuity for far-flung regions. But we have ways of making that problem a little easier to deal with.
Mann Made Group is a financial services firm that’s headquartered on the Isle of Man. They need to make sure their customers have access to financial information all the time. So they contracted with PC Mann, an IT services provider to help make sure that business is always running smoothly. PC Mann uses StorageCraft ShadowProtect to help power its business continuity offering for customers. This way, PC Mann can give Mann Made Group both on-site backup, for quick recovery in the event of a catastrophic hardware failure, or off-site backup, in case of a disaster like a fire or flood.
With ShadowProtect’s VirtualBoot technology PC Mann can get one of Mann Made Group’s servers backup and and running as a virtual machine in just a few minutes; 30 minutes for a full bare metal restore. From the press release announcing the relationship, here’s what Alan Hollingsworth, Managing Director and Founder of Mann Made Group, had to say:
“We are a services business and any loss of IT systems is damaging to our reputation and our clients. The solution from PC Mann is effectively belt and braces and gives us a business continuity strategy that goes much further than other small firms in our industry.”
For the last 18 months, PC Mann has helped a growing list of clients replace legacy tape with StorageCraft disk based disaster recovery solutions.
“The cost of a full second site or server replication system is still prohibitive for most small business,” explains Andy Heeney, Managing Director of PC Mann, “We choose to partner with StorageCraft as it allows us to remove the complexity of managing server images and virtualised recovery servers and allows us to provide a reliable and cost effective service that requires little on-site management expertise or expensive hardware.” PC Mann is experiencing growing demand for its business continuity services across the island. “Smaller organisations rely on IT to give them a competitive advantage and the loss of applications for just a few hours can lead to customers switching suppliers and long term damage. Solutions like StorageCraft pay for themselves in the equivalent of just a few hours of downtime.”
Powered by StorageCraft
Two of our partners announced they are working together with us on an offering that will make life a whole lot easier for MSPs. LabTech and Doyenz will be using StorageCraft ShadowProtect technology to power a new offering that allows server failover in the cloud. This makes it a whole lot easier for MSPs to monitor their systems with LabTech, backup their systems with ShadowProtect and failover to a virtual machine on-site or off-site in the Doyenz Shadowcloud.
Here’s more about this “Freemium” offering from the press release:
“MSPs need an efficient method of protecting their customers’ information and monitoring their systems to prevent problems before they happen,” said Curt James, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at StorageCraft. “This strategic relationship between LabTech, Doyenz and StorageCraft not only allows MSPs to keep tabs on servers and resolve issues before they become problems, it also allows them to backup and failover systems in the cloud, in case of a catastrophe that can’t be prevented.”
“By partnering with LabTech and StorageCraft, we are proud to offer the channel a truly innovative, end-to-end disaster recovery solution, previously only available to enterprise market,” said Eric Webster, VP of Sales and Marketing for Doyenz. “Managed Service Providers can now ensure complete business continuity and manage their clients remotely with LabTech—and make significant profit margins while doing so.”
“The formed partnerships with Doyenz and StorageCraft, and the newly developed Freemium offer is a huge benefit to our LabTech partners and the entire MSP industry,” said Matt Nachtrab, CEO of LabTech Software. “LabTech Software and its partnerships with other leading industry solution providers like Doyenz and StorageCraft is giving today’s MSPs the needed toolsets to help their IT businesses become more efficient, productive and profitable.”
This gives MSPs a lot of options for backup and disaster recovery. You can read the entire press release here.
Visit us as MSPWorld Conference & Expo
StorageCraft will be participating in the MSPWorld Conference and Expo next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at the Los Angeles Convention Center. If you’re planning to attend, please make sure you stop by and say hello. We’ll be talking about ShadowProtect 4, of course, because that’s what we do.
We’ll also be telling people about the new features that help businesses get back up and running even faster than ever. Can you recover a 1TB server in five minutes or less? We can! And we’ll show you how you can, too. Our booth is #853. Even if you’re already sold on ShadowProtect, we would love to hear from you.
To find out more visit the MSPWorld Conference and Expo Web site http://www.mspnews.com for all of the details.
Video: Business Continuity Suite
In the last few weeks we’ve told you a bit about our partnership with Symform. We’re working together on the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform. Symform worked with Varvid Video to put together this short introduction to the Business Continuity Suite, which includes interviews with Brandon Nordquist, StorageCraft’s vice president of product management and one of its co-founders, Praerit Garg, Symform’s CEO and co-founder and Jamison West, CEO of JWCS, a managed service provider already using the Business Continuity Suite.
If you’d like to know more, visit www.businesscontinuitysuite.com
Business Continuity Suite Web Training
Today’s Business Continuity Suite Web training is underway, but there are still a couple of opportunities to sign up. These free, one-hour Webinars will show you how easy it is to offer your SMB customers simple, affordable cloud backup with the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform. Next week, we’ll have two training session, on Tuesday and on Thursday, so you can learn how StorageCraft ShadowProtect and the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud can make it easy for you provide cloud backup to your customers. In addition to easy implementation, the Business Continuity Suite is also very cost effective. Hard to believe? The free Web training will explain why it’s time to move your customers to the cloud.
Here are some benefits of the Business Continuity Suite:
* Rapid recovery
* Restore to bare metal, to dissimilar hardware or to and from virtual environments.
* Backup near-line and in the cloud
* Encryption of backup files using 256-bit military grade AES algorithm
* Redundant storage of secure files in multiple locations and around the world.
In addition to saving money, the Business Continuity Suite is also fast and extremely secure. You won’t have to worry about unwanted intruders stealing you or your customers’ data.
The upcoming online training events are Tuesday, September 14 and Thursday, September 16. Check out the Business Continuity Suite Web site to find out more, and to sign up for a Webinar.
Analyst’s view of the Business Continuity Suite
StorageCraft and Symform zoom into online disaster recovery and business continuity
Partnership between software vendors for MSP storage services
By Deni Connor
Senior Analyst
Storage Strategies NOW
September 2010
Data protection and recovery software developer StorageCraft and cloud services provider Symform moved into the world of cloud-based disaster recovery and business continuity with a recent partnership in which Symform will be a platform for protecting StorageCraft ShadowProtect images.
The Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform allows Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to offer their customers backup and disaster recovery as a cloud-based storage offering. Using ShadowProtect™ technology, MSPs save backup images onsite and offsite, via the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud™ to enable near-line and cloud-based disaster recovery.
Simply, the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform allows ShadowProtect image-level backups to be securely distributed across other small and mid-sized businesses and among its IT service providers in a cooperative and shared storage fashion in order to protect it and ensure its recoverability.
StorageCraft and Symform are among the first vendors to craft such a deal, which provides their MSP partners and their SMB customers with an affordable and easily implemented means of disaster recovery.
Market background
In the SMB market, although 50% of businesses have a local backup strategy, they often do not have an affordable and efficient means of moving data offsite for protection in the event of a disaster. They may shuttle tapes offsite or they may use an online backup service such as EMC MozyPro or Carbonite, whose pricing is based on a capacity of storage stored. An SMB will soon find that these methods for protecting data and providing business continuity are too error-prone, cumbersome to administer and time-consuming means to recover data quickly. And, they are expensive – online backup services can cost almost $400 a month to protect even just one file server.
Enter the Business Continuity Suite
StorageCraft has partnered with Symform to use its distributed storage system across small and mid-sized businesses and their IT storage service providers. Here’s how the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform works.
StorageCraft ShadowProtect Server™, ShadowProtect Small Business Server™ or ShadowProtect Desktop™ creates an encrypted, image-based backup of a designated system. This series of differential and incremental point-in-time backup image files are then stored in locally hosted folders. The Symform Node software, which is installed on one computer in the customer’s network, is pointed at these local folders, where it monitors them for file adds or changes. It then automatically mirrors the adds and changes made to local storage to the cloud, where it creates a duplicate file structure.
Each StorageCraft image file is reduced to a series of 64MB blocks, which are then encrypted using AES-256 encryption algorithms. These 64MB blocks are then shredded locally into 1MB fragments. Using an erasure encoding algorithm called Reed-Solomon, 32 parity fragments are added to every 64, resulting in 96 fragments. Dubbed RAID-96™ by Symform, any 64 of the 96 segments can recreate the original block, thereby guaranteeing recoverability and high-availability.
All 96 fragments are distributed using a random statistical model to 96 participating Nodes in the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud. An application called Symform Cloud Control™, which runs at Amazon Cloud Services (EC2) acts as a traffic controller, tells the local machine where to place each of the fragments.
When the Symform Node is configured, the end-user or MSP determines how much local disk space it plans to contribute to the cloud. This can be disk space at a local office or that of a MSP. An SMB or its MSP simply needs to contribute as much disk space as the disk space they want to consume with StorageCraft image-level backups.
Channel impact
The Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform is a completely channel-focused program, with pricing determined by StorageCraft and Symform MSPs. It makes disaster recovery practical for SMBs and at much less cost – approximately $50 per month per protected server.
The solution lets MSPs provide disaster recovery and business continuity services without a huge outlay for business continuity infrastructure. By simply donating disk space to the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud, the MSP can reap the advantages of acting as a storage services provider (SSP).
SSG-NOW Assessment
StorageCraft’s and Symform’s approach to cloud-based business continuity is a shoo-in for the small and mid-sized business, which is faced with expensive and often unreliable solutions for cloud enablement. The MSP focus of this announcement is close to perfect for the SMB who does business with a particular MSP because of the customer’s inability or disinclination to provide IT resources and because of its relative inexperience with technology. The Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform is priced right for the MSP market – at $50 per protected server, it provides an affordable, easy for the MSP to implement alternative to other inefficient cloud-based backup and recovery solutions on the market.
Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform
Looking for a way to have your cloud and still make money, too? We announced our new joint cloud backup venture today, the Business Continuity Suite powered by StorageCraft and Symform. The news announcement highlights our partnership and how MSPs can use the Business Continuity Suite to backup their customers’ systems and data near-line and off-site — without it costing an arm and a leg.
In the next few weeks, Symform and StorageCraft will offer Web-based training courses so you can learn how the Business Continuity Suite works and how to set it up to get the most benefit for your customers. Basically, you use StorageCraft ShadowProtect technology to backup servers, desktops and laptops and then save the point-in-time backup images to the Symform Cooperative Storage Cloud.
The Business Continuity Suite will help you provide the following:
• Get systems up and running quickly after a catastrophic failure.
• Backup on-site and replicate to the cloud for flexible disaster recovery options.
• Restore to bare metal, to dissimilar hardware or to and from virtual environments.
• Multiple levels of encryption and military grade security of backup files to prevent intrusion.
• Schedule full and incremental backups to be saved automatically on-site and in the cloud.
• Contribute excess storage and get valuable cloud storage in return.
• Rapid recovery of files, folders or your entire system should a disaster occur.
You can learn more about the Business Continuity Suite at www.businesscontinuitysuite.com, where you’ll find white papers, data sheets, an analyst’s report and more. Or sign up for the free, one-hour classes which will show you how you can offer simple, affordable cloud backup to your customers.
Server Phobia
The March 2010 edition of Channel Pro has a great story about how to sell small businesses on system security. The article focuses on business that don’t have servers, but still need data protection and security. One StorageCraft partner, Bill Hole of The Hole Group, discussed how he’s using StorageCraft ShadowProtect to backup his customers’ data locally and off-site. Even though he’s recommended the customer upgrade and move to a server environment, the customer is happy knowing the company data is still safe.
When we talked about their budget for an upgrade, they still refused a server,” says Hole “They asked what [they] would gain from a server. Instead, they bought a second TeraStation and are happy with their decision.
The article also gives tips and tricks for selling your services to companies that aren’t networked. You can view the entire digital version of Channel Pro online.
Reliable Recovery
StorageCraft is featured in the March 12 edition of Processor in an article titled Reliable Recovery. StorageCraft VP of Product Management Brandon Nordquist discusses the company’s growth, even in a difficult economy, as well as the need for quick and reliable disaster recovery.
StorageCraft intends to continue its program of product expansion in the year ahead. One area that Nordquist has identified as having growth potential is virtualization, a key area for many software developers. Another major effort will be to increase the speed of recovery in all of its ShadowProtect applications.
“When you’re really in a crunch—when servers are down or the CEO’s laptop is not working—that’s when you need to do a very fast restore,” he says, noting that the key difficulty IT administrators have is keeping up with the daily accumulation of work data that then has to be restored in the event of a failure.
Nordquist also discusses StorageCraft’s business model, product line and some future plans in the article.
Award for StorageCraft VP
It’s always nice when someone says something good about you. In this case, the honor is for StorageCraft vice president of sales, Mike Kunz. CRN and Everything Channel just named Mike to their 2010 Channel Chiefs list. We’ve known for a while that Mike is a fantastic advocate for our partners — distributors, value added resellers and MSPs — but it’s nice to get confirmation from people on the outside.
You can read all about the award in this news release. Interested in finding out more about the StorageCraft Reseller Partner Program or our Managed Service Provider Partner Program? There is a lot of information on the StorageCraft Partner Program pages on our Web site.
StorageCraft ShadowProtect in PC World
StorageCraft ShadowProtect is mentioned in a success story in PC World about virtualizing blade servers. PC Troubleshooters in Rhode Island is using ShadowProtect Server as part of its backup and disaster recovery solution to protect the systems and data on the servers in their data center.
We created our own backup and disaster recovery system by deploying a network-attached storage device onsite and using StorageCraft ShadowProtect software to image servers on an hourly basis. Each image is encrypted and sent to two separate storage facilities in Maryland and Colorado.
Check out this case study and find out how you might be able to use StorageCraft ShadowProtect as part of your backup and disaster recovery offering, whether you’re protecting physical servers, virtual servers, or both.
Who’s Handling Your Backup?
Is your data backed up?
It may seem like a ridiculous idea. Of course all of your data has a backup, right? Think again. This tale of IT woe shows that it can happen at any small business.
A question often asked is, “how could anyone be so stupid as to not back up data?” Reflecting on my own experience, I see how it could happen. Sometimes a series of events can interfere with important and seemingly basic IT tasks, such as backups.
Maybe that’s the first question for solution providers to ask a small business owner. And if they do have a backup in place, will it work when they need it? Just having a backup doesn’t mean that it will be effective when called upon. Here are some more questions to ask SMBs about their backup system:
- What would it cost you if a server failed – not just in terms of hardware and software, but in terms of productivity?
- What is your Recovery Time Objective (RTO)? Can you afford lengthy downtime while you spend days trying to restore your server?
- How reliable is your current backup/disaster recovery solution? Have you ever tried to restore a server, desktop and laptop?
- How long did it take to restore? Do you know how quickly you could be up and running again if a server, desktop or laptop no longer worked? Would it take you days or even weeks to have access to your data?
- Would you have access to the data even if the server could not be salvaged? Would you be able to restore your systems and data to new hardware or virtual hardware?
The solution, of course, is something you can offer them, as potential customers. By using the StorageCraft Managed Service Provider (MSP) licensing model you can provide ShadowProtect backup and disaster recovery software on a monthly subscription basis to your customers. You can do this without any up-front costs because you will only be charged – each month – for the licensing you are currently using, for the licenses you’ve already sold. If a customer orders 10 server licenses and then only uses eight, you will only be charged for the eight they use, and only during the months they use them.
We have tons of information about selling backup and disaster recovery as a service to your customers. Check here first to learn more about the StorageCraft MSP Partner program.
StorageCraft Partnership with Doyenz
StorageCraft is teaming up with Doyenz, the people who created the Doyenz ShadowCloud. This means you can now failover your ShadowProtect images in the cloud. It’s a great way to do your offsite backup, while still allowing you to keep your ShadowProtect images onsite.
You’re protected if you need rapid recovery of your systems and/or data no matter what happens. If it’s user error, you can quickly mount your ShadowProtect backup image and recover files and folders. If it’s server failure, you can do a bare metal recovery. And if you have an entire site wiped out, you can access your entire server from the Doyenz ShadowCloud.
We’re highlighting the new partnership at SMB Nation this weekend. Stop by our booth (#213) and say hello, if you’re in Las Vegas.
If you’d like more information about this partnership, you can view our news release here.
CRN Profiles StorageCraft on ChannelWeb
CRN has a profile on StorageCraft that it just posted as part of its Emerging Vendor series.
With such major players using its technology it shouldn’t come as surprise that the people running the company thought they could do well for themselves by forming their own channel program and working with solution providers directly.
The profile touches on a little company history and highlights our two channel programs.
Updated Knowledge Base
We’re always trying to update and improve our Web site, so we recently added some new features to the StorageCraft Knowledge Base.
Some of the new features:
We also consolidated some information from different StorageCraft offices and put everything in one place. As always, let us know if there is something you’d like to see.
ShadowProtect rises in SMB market
Editor’s note: Storage Strategies NOW, a storage industry analyst firm, put together this snapshot report looking at the award-winning StorageCraft ShadowProtect line of disk-based backup, disaster recovery and system migration software.
By Deni Connor, principal analyst
Storage Strategies NOW
StorageCraft of Draper, Utah, is bolstering the sales of its ShadowProtect data protection and disaster recovery and system migration products with a new program and products for managed service providers (MSPs) and value-added resellers (VARs) that will not only increase their business opportunities but their chances of engaging customers.
StorageCraft offers a portfolio of disaster recovery and data protection products called ShadowProtect. The family includes four products — ShadowProtect Server Edition, Small Business Server (SBS) Edition, Desktop Edition and IT Edition – all software-based products that are optimized for Windows server and desktop data protection and disaster recovery.
The company backs up its products with a seasoned management team comprised of individuals from PowerQuest (acquired by Symantec) and Legato (acquired by EMC). One of its products, Volume Snapshot Manager, has met with such success that it has been integrated into software from companies the likes of EMC, HP, VMware and LiveVault. Volume Snapshot Manager by StorageCraft’s claim is in use at over one million installations.
Each of StorageCraft’s products — ShadowProtect Server Edition, SBS Edition, Desktop Edition and IT Edition – is available for different sets of users. Server Edition and SBS Edition are targeted at server, data center and database administrators in SMBs and to managed service providers (MSPs) and value-added resellers (VARs) who support customer’s servers. Desktop Edition is targeted at helpdesk personnel, SMBs, small office/home offices and power users. IT Edition is focused on MSPs, VARs, corporate IT organizations, server, database and data center administrators and helpdesk personnel.
ShadowProtect Server Edition and SBS Edition
ShadowProtect Server Edition and SBS Edition address the mid-enterprise and SMB market in particular with a focus on protecting Windows servers, VMWare environments and on Microsoft’s Hyper-V virtualization platform – all environments expected to dominate the SMB market. Additionally and adding to its strength, ShadowProtect can be implemented in Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange environments; ShadowProtect Desktop Edition can protect each workstation or desktop’s individual configuration and personal settings.
ShadowProtect Server Edition and SBS Edition can be used to ensure high-availability of business-critical applications, to migrate systems, applications and data to a new server during technology refreshes and to restore physical and virtual machines to new servers or physical systems once they have been repaired. ShadowProtect provides disaster recovery, migration and data protection for Windows Small Business Server (SBS) users, as well as bare metal recovery of Windows servers, Microsoft SQL Server and Exchange environments. The software also includes a bootable recovery CD, which can be used to provide automatic hardware detection and disaster recovery to the same system, dissimilar hardware or to and from virtual environments.
Snapshots and point-in-time copies
Volume Snapshot Manager is the crux of ShadowProtect Server Edition and SBS Edition – it tracks sector level changes from one scheduled point-in-time backup to the next. Volume Snapshot Manager allows administrators to take snapshots as frequently as every 15 minutes. Those snapshots are then used by the ShadowProtect to prepare daily, weekly and monthly backup images of a server, desktop or workstation.
In a continuous incremental environment, a full backup is taken only once. As sectors change, incremental snapshots catch the changes and generate incremental backup images of them. Each day, incremental backup images are collapsed into a Daily image file. Daily image files are collapsed each week into a Weekly image file, and then into a Monthly file, and so forth. Continuous incrementals are best used where large volumes of data or highly loaded servers need backing up and large backup windows are not available. They are also extremely useful for getting the backups offsite. This is an excellent strategy that generates rapid snapshots and frequent recovery points without the expense and extensive complexity of mirrored environments.
StorageCraft MSP and Reseller Partner Programs
StorageCraft has a well-maintained and run MSP & Reseller Partner Program that companies such as techXtend and Programmer’s Paradise have taken advantage of to sell disk-based data protection and disaster recovery to their clients.
The program allows MSPs and VARs a 30-day full-featured, demonstration version of ShadowProtect, which they can use to show the benefits of ShadowProtect to potential customers.
Key benefits of the StorageCraft Reseller Partner Program include software, marketing materials, sales training, technical training, pre-sales support, product support, beta program participation and lead sharing.
Each new MSP or VAR is able to count on the skills of a StorageCraft Development Manager and Technical Account Manager to help them develop programs that attract customers and bolster present customer’s application capabilities.
MSPs pay only for active software licenses on a monthly basis – as additional licenses are purchased the price of the license drops from $58 to as little as $32. As customers change, licenses can be relocated from one machine to another or from one customer to another. Each MSP receives a license key that can be used on all servers or desktops under management. Since pricing is based on a monthly fee-structure, not the full license cost of the software, this keeps entry costs low.
Resellers with a Windows sales base are able to sell ShadowProtect Server Edition at a cost that is much less than that of competitive solutions. Like the MSP program, resellers receive not-for-resale software, access to the latest marketing materials and sales tools, technical training and support and beta program participation.
StorageCraft has also bolstered its portfolio with ShadowProtect IT Edition software, which provides IT, MSPs, VARs and data center or systems administrators with hardware-independent restorations of physical servers, conversion of physical servers to virtual servers and vice versa and bare metal recovery. IT Edition provides users with a bootable Windows environment from which they can create or restore compressed and encrypted backup images with no software installation.
In addition, StorageCraft has launched a community in which VARs, MSPs and IT end-users can post information, questions and data on their own problems or how to resolve a problem another customer has.
SSG-NOW Assessment
StorageCraft is well positioned to carve out a data protection and disaster recovery niche in the SMB market. Ease of use and the simplicity of snapshot-based recovery scenarios is particularly suited to this level of user. The company’s MSP and Reseller Partner Programs focus on education on StorageCraft products, identifying solutions that fit customer needs and increasing an MSP or reseller’s service business. The company offers a reseller business development manager on a geographical basis, and dedicated pre-sale and post-sale technical support. Offering resellers an incremental pricing plan encourages loyalty. Support collateral and staff are organized to enable the reseller to grow its business in the lucrative data protection and disaster recovery field.
StorageCraft History
Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to begin, so when in doubt, begin at the beginning. StorageCraft’s history started in the 90s as StorageCraft, Inc. — a company that made storage drivers and other tools. In 2003, it merged with ShadowStor and became StorageCraft Technology Corporation.
For the first few years we focused on using the great tools created in the 90s and developing really reliable software from them. First, we offered ShadowServer, ShadowUser and ShadowSurfer, which made use of the original snapshot driver the company had developed.
Several other companies were already using our technology in their backup software, so we decided to use our fantastic snapshot driver to create our own backup and disaster recovery solution. In 2005, we released ShadowProtect, which has gone on to win awards and praises around the world.
The company is located in Draper, Utah in the U.S. If you’ve ever wondered where Draper is, it’s in the south part of the Salt Lake valley.