StorageCraft ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise 4.0 ($299)

StorageCraft Technology Corporation, a provider of disk-based backup, disaster recovery, system migration, data protection and security solutions for servers, desktops and laptops, announced the release of StorageCraft ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise 4.0.

The newest version in the ShadowProtect line of backup, disaster recovery and system migration technology decreases the amount of time required to restore Windows systems and improves central management of ShadowProtect backups.

ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise includes a new feature called HeadStart Restore (HSR), which allows IT managers to automate recovery – getting servers back up and running in a matter of mere minutes, rather than hours. IT managers create a system restore job from their ShadowProtect Server or ShadowProtect Small Business Server scheduled backups. The HSR job begins the recovery process immediately – and the restore job is updated with incremental changes throughout the day. Following a disaster, the administrator is able to finalize the restore and get the server online again very quickly.

“System restores often involve terabytes of data, which means a realistic RTO is hours,” said Scott Barnes, chief technology officer at StorageCraft. “With HeadStart Restore, we’ve drastically reduced the time it takes to recover your systems and data because most of the system and data recovery occurred before there was even a failure.”

How HSR Works
To prepare a server for HSR, the IT administrator sets up a system restore job in ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise, which begins recovery right away.

Any incremental changes to the backup are also sent to the system restore job and applied. The Lag Time Apply feature in HSR also allows administrators to delay incremental changes – to account for corruption from malware or a virus. By default, this is set to three days, but this can be changed to suit IT requirements.

In the event of a disaster, the administrator finalizes the restore – which usually takes seconds to apply the incremental updates – then prepares the virtual environment, runs ShadowProtect’s Hardware Independent Restore technology, reboots the server, and is back up and running. The elapsed time is several minutes, not several hours.

“Being able to get a jump on the restore process with HeadStart Restore is a tremendous asset for our business and for our customers,” said Shawn Massey, director of NetAssist at Camera Corner/Connecting Point Computer Center. “We’re able to get servers up and running in a fraction of the time it used to take. Downtime is expensive, and knowing that it won’t take all day or all weekend to rebuild a server is invaluable.”

Additional Features
ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise also includes replication technology, to allow you to send your backup images to a separate location, on-site or off-site. Once you’ve configured replication, you can send backup images to one or multiple locations. This feature also lets you save backups to an off-site location to meet compliancy and archival requirements.     

In addition, ShadowProtect ImageManage Enterprise allows administrators to verify and re-verify ShadowProtect backup image files, consolidate backup image files to minimize storage usage and streamline management and set up e-mail notification to track the status of backup jobs.

ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise
has the following features:

• HeadStart Restore,
• Lag Time Apply,
• Image replication,
• Image verification and re-verification,
• Image consolidation,
• E-mail notification.

Availability
ShadowProtect ImageManager Enterprise is available from authorized StorageCraft distributors and value-added resellers (VARs). Volume discounts are available.