StorageCraft ShadowProtect SPX Server (Linux)
Reliable Backup, Disaster Recovery, and System Migration for Linux Servers

Features & Benefits:

Backup

Capture everything—systems, applications, configuration settings, services, data—so you don’t risk losing irreplaceable data, custom applications, or your operating system.

• Execute a one-time full backup of a Windows or Linux hard drive that you can archive
• Back up Microsoft SQL, Exchange, and SharePoint servers and other critical application servers, including updates in memory
• Back up nearly any type of Linux server, such as web, mail, database, and file servers
• Encrypt backup jobs to securely protect data
• Save backups to any internal or removable drive or network storage device
• Quickly view the size, duration, and type of each performed backup and monitor any issues from the patented job timeline feature in the SPX user interface
• Manage how long you retain backup images when you need to save on storage space
• Back up a non-bootable system before attempting a restore operation using StorageCraft Recovery Environment

Scheduling

Run backups regularly, even while people work (they won’t even notice), and you’ll never risk losing more than a few minutes of data.

• Schedule full or incremental backups to occur automatically
• Get complete flexibility in scheduling your backup jobs—for example, run backups more often Monday through Thursday, run fewer on Friday, and just one over the weekend
• Create “mixed-mode” backup job schedules (a full backup followed by daily incremental backups until the next scheduled full backup)
• Create “continuous incremental” backup schedules (a full backup followed by perpetual daily incremental backups)
• Schedule incremental backups to run as often as every 15 minutes

Remote Management

Manage SPX-agent installation and backup-job scheduling on remote machines without leaving your desk.

• Use the same SPX user interface to connect to machines running SPX, regardless of whether they are Windows or Linux
• Install the SPX agent on a Windows server, desktop, laptop, or VM and create a backup-job schedule for that machine without having to visit it
• Install the SPX agent on a Linux server or VM and create a backup-job schedule for that machine without having to visit it
• Choose to receive email notification when backup jobs succeed or fail
• Monitor SPX backup jobs on multiple endpoints from a single dashboard (available when you download free StorageCraft ShadowControl software)
• Create backup-job policies and apply them to groups of endpoints instead of configuring each endpoint’s backup-job schedule separately (available when you download free StorageCraft ShadowControl software)

Testing

Run easy-to-execute tests on your backup images, and you’ll be sure your backups will work when a disaster strikes.

• Verify the integrity of backup images through the image-chain browser in order to ensure they’re in a known good state for fast and reliable recovery
• Mount backup images through the image-chain browser and look through files and folders (if successful, the backup image is healthy)
• Boot a backup image to a virtual machine with VirtualBoot to test whether a restored system would function properly

Recovery

Recover a file or a folder or restore a whole system fast, to the same or different hardware, and avoid downtime and its costs.

• Recover a file or folder by mounting a point-in-time backup image from the image-chain browser
• Restore an entire data volume from the image-chain browser
• Quickly restore access to a database server by mounting a point-in-time backup image
• Restore a system to the same physical or virtual environment (with the StorageCraft Recovery Environment)
• Restore a Windows system to a different physical or virtual environment by using StorageCraft Hardware Independent Restore technology
• Restore a Linux system to a different physical or virtual environment with boot repair
• Rapidly boot a backup image as a virtual machine (temporary system failover) with VirtualBoot
  • boot an SPX Windows or Linux backup on a supported Linux version
  • boot an SPX Windows backup on a supported Windows system
  • boot an SPX Windows backup as a guest VM on a Hyper-V host (Windows 2012 R2 and 2016 required)

Migration

Move a system to a new machine without losing uptime, and do so regardless of your hardware choice.

Licensing:

StorageCraft licenses SPX on a per-system basis. SPX licenses are available for:

• Windows physical servers and small-business servers
• Linux physical servers
• Windows VMs
• Linux VMs
• Windows desktops and laptops

A VM license is appropriately less expensive than a physical server license. Please note that a virtual license allows you to migrate or restore a VM to a physical environment. However, once restored to a physical system, the virtual license ends. Use a new physical license to continue to make backups in a physical environment.

Licensing options

StorageCraft provides the following licensing options:

1. Annual subscription licensing
   • Choose a 1-year or 2-year subscription. Maintenance is included for the duration of the subscription.
     • For physical machines, we offer subscriptions on a per-system basis.
     • For VMs, we offer subscriptions on a per-socket or per-system basis.
2. Per-socket perpetual licensing for VMs. Choose from:
   • Standard Socket Edition for organizations with more than 6 sockets in their environment
   • Essentials Socket Edition for organizations with 6 sockets or fewer in their environment
3. Per-system perpetual licensing for virtual and physical machines
   • You can buy a single license for a single system or buy bundles of licenses with volume discounting to protect several systems at once. The first year of maintenance is included.
4. Per-system MSP Subscription Licensing for virtual and physical machines.
   • MSPs providing protection for their clients can provide monthly subscriptions that auto-renew. The monthly fee includes MSP Portal access and maintenance.

Screenshots:

SPX Linux scheduling options

SPX Linux timeline

SPX Windows scheduling options

SPX Windows timeline

Technical Specifications :

Requirements and Supported Environments

Version support

• Supported Linux Versions (64-bit)

Supported Linux Versions

Hypervisor support

• Citrix XenServer
• Linux KVM
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Microsoft Virtual PC
• Microsoft Virtual Server
• Oracle VirtualBox
• ProxMox
• Qemu
• Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV)
• Stratos everRun
• VMware ESX/ESXi (including the free version of ESXi)
• VMware Workstation

Socket licensing support

Socket licensing is available on:

• VMware ESXi 5 and 6 with vCenter
• Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 R2 and 2012 R2

NOTE: Socket licensing requires the installation of the StorageCraft Socket Licensing Service on a designated VM (Windows or Linux) in a given host environment. That VM requires Internet access.

System requirements

Requirements and limitations for

• Linux Volume Architecture
  StorageCraft strongly recommends recording the disk partition layout and logical volume configuration when installing SPX. This simplifies the restore process using the Recovery Environment.
• Console Requirements
  The SPX console requires an XServer GUI desktop environment. See the Remote Management section below for details on installing on systems which do not have a GUI install or the system runs headless.
• Supported Kernel Versions
  StorageCraft continually updates this list of supported Linux kernel versions for Ubuntu and CentOS/Red Hat RHEL. A more automated approach is to follow these instructions to confirm that SPX supports the installed kernel version:
  • Ubuntu (64-bit)
  • CentOS/RHEL (64-bit)
  • CentOS/RHEL (64-bit) with EPEL repositories enabled and one of the supported kernel versions.
• File Systems
  SPX supports these Linux file systems on storage devices:
  • ext2
  • ext3
  • ext4 XFS
• Sector Sizes
  Contemporary hard drives and SSDs ship with a 4096-byte physical sector size. Most also support the 512-byte logical sector size. (These drives are often labeled 512e for "512 Byte Sector Size Emulation".) SPX supports backing up both 4096- and 512-byte logical sector sizes. In the unusual situation of restoring a partition/volume from one logical sector size to another:
  • 512 bytes per logical sector -> 4096 bytes per logical sector (and the destination does not support 512e)
  • 4096 bytes per logical sector -> 512 bytes per logical sector
• VirtualBoot
  SPX supports various versions of Oracle VirtualBox including v.4.3.28. The Oracle website provides a download for VirtualBox.

Documentation:

Download the StorageCraft ShadowProtect SPX Data Sheet (PDF).