STOREGRID FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

ONLINE BACKUP & DISASTER RECOVERY FOR MSPs & VARs

Overview

StoreGrid Service Provider Edition offers a comprehensive and affordable Backup & Disaster Recovery (BDR) platform for Managed Service Providers, Managed Hosting Providers and VARs to boost their customer base and revenues by enhancing their managed services offering to their business customers.

Key Benefits

Simplified multi-tenant and multi-user backups
Completely rebrandable and easy-to-use
Instant Restore slashes recovery time and enables fast disaster recovery of physical or virtual machines
A comprehensive BDR solution for On-Premise backup, Remote Backup and Cloud Disaster Recovery
Generate recurring revenue with additional backup services to your existing hosting customers. Use this value-add service to attract new customers

Key Features

High performance backup
A cross-platform and high performance backup solution
Easy and instant restores
Multiple recovery points with effortless Bare-Metal Recoveries and P2V migrations
Highly scalable architecture
Replicate and cluster across WAN to any Cloud Storage provider of your choice - Amazon, Azure, etc
Complete protection for virtual environments
Compatible with common physical or virtual server environments.
Easy-to-use centralized management
Web management interface allows easy remote configuration and management.
Application aware disaster recovery
In-depth integration with business-critical applications.
Advanced Reports
Allows for deeper strategic analysis of backup practices.
Integrations
Seamlessly works with ConnectWise, Autotask, WHMCS, Ubersmith and more.

Click here for comprehensive list of features in StoreGrid Service Provider Edition

Since 2004, Vembu’s StoreGrid data protection solution has delivered tangible value to over 3500 partners worldwide who manage, protect and administer over 50 PB of business critical data.

High Performance Backup

StoreGrid offers a cross-platform and high performance backup solution that protects your system, data, files and applications in both physical and virtual environments – all managed through a single pane of glass.

Single solution for all types of backups

StoreGrid can be your single solution for all your backup needs – may it be backing up Disk Images, your Virtual Machines, Databases, Applications or files. There are no additional plugins or add-ons to install. It all just works out of the box.

Bare Metal Backup and Restore (BMR) with P2V

StoreGrid’s BMR capabilities provide you the complete solution to efficiently do point in time restore of the entire machine. StoreGrid supports image backup of specific volumes or entire disk. The backup image (VHD) can also be instantaneously booted up as a Hyper-V virtual machine. StoreGrid also supports conversion of the backup image into a VMware Virtual image (VMDK).

Backs up changed blocks alone

StoreGrid’s Intelli-Delta technology makes sure that only changed blocks of the modified files are backed up during incremental backups.

Continue where it left off

Within a file backup, StoreGrid’s keeps track at the block level of data that has been already uploaded. In case of an interruption in the connectivity to the backup server, StoreGrid automatically resumes its backup exactly from where it left off once the connectivity to the backup server is established.

Efficient file tracking

StoreGrid uses Windows Directory Monitoring Service to keep track of the files that have been newly added or modified since the last backup. During the next incremental backup, it just reads these files and not the entire disk to identify what has to be backed up.

Backup open files

StoreGrid uses Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to create a snapshot of files before backing up. StoreGrid can therefore even backup files that are open by other applications. Also using the VSS service, StoreGrid ensures that the files are in consistent state during backup.

On-the-fly compression and encryption

StoreGrid’s file backup doesn’t copy the files to another location before backing up. Storegrid reads the files, identifies the changes blocks, compresses and encrypts the data on the fly making it very efficient.

No limit on the size of the file it can backup

Since StoreGrid reads the file and backs up directly to the backup server without first dumping it to another location, there is absolutely no restriction on the size of the file that it can backup,even when compression and encryption are enabled.

Automated multiple backup scheduling

StoreGrid supports weekly, daily, hourly and continuous automatic scheduling of backups. The backup jobs can be configured to run one after the other or multiple jobs can be scheduled to run at the same time.

Backup Seeding for large backup sets

When backup set is large and network bandwidth is limited, it could take days for the initial backup to complete. In such cases, backups can be run to a locally attached disk, the disk can then be shipped to the site where the backup server is located and the data can be imported from the disk into the backup server.

Synthetic Full Backups

Over a period of time, the amount of content that has changed in a file since its initial full backup could grow, making the incremental backups larger and larger. StoreGrid can automatically limit the size of incremental by running a synthetic full backup of the file based on a user set limit. Thereafter, the incremental of the file will be only the changed data with respect to the last synthetic full and not with respect to the initial full backup of the file.

Flexible backup retention policies

StoreGrid retention policies for the backup data can be configured based on the number of versions and based on the age of the version files. Separate retention policies can be set for delete files and folders.

Backup network and NAS drives

StoreGrid can backup files from any external drives – mapped network drives, NAS drives etc. As long as the user is able to access the files from any of these sources, StoreGrid will also be able to back them up.

Backup Virtual Machines

StoreGrid can be installed in virtual machines running any of the supported OSes (Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, FreeBSD) to back up the data from the virtual machines. StoreGrid can also backup the entire virtual machine in VMware, Hyper-V and Xen* systems.

Inbuilt Integrity Check

StoreGrid’s data integrity check makes sure that the data is stored exactly as it left the source machine that is backed up. If the integrity check fails due to data corruption during the transfer of data, StoreGrid makes sure the data is retransmitted.

Easy and Instant Restores

Instant restore by booting up as a virtual machine (P2V)

StoreGrid Disk image backups are in VHD format by default and therefore can be quickly booted up as a virtual machine in a Hyper-V server. The VHD based backups can also be converted into VMware file format (VMDK) and booted up as virtual machines in VMware ESX servers. This helps MSPs to provide an efficient Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity service to their customers.

Secure Restores

Data arrives at the agent machine (machine to which data has to be restored) in encrypted format keeping it secure during transit from the remote backup server. Restore jobs have to be first authenticated at the backup server and the encryption password has to be provided before the restore can initiate.

Restore on agent machine, backup server or replication server

Restore jobs can be initiated from the agent machine, backup server or from the replication server (server to which backup server is replicated). This provides the ability for MSPs to restore data at the server which they manage and ship the disk with the restored data to their customer.

Exporting backup data

Backup data can be exported to an external disk, keeping the data in encrypted and compressed format. The disk can then be shipped to the customer site where data is imported and restored into the machine that is to be recovered.

Restoring versions from different backup timestamps

Sometimes it may be required that some of the files have to be restored from previous versions while the latest version has to be restored for rest of the files. StoreGrid’s restore lets you do that.

Resume from where it left off

Restore jobs initiated to an offsite backup server could sometimes take a longer time to complete depending upon the available network bandwidth and data size. StoreGrid can resume restore from exactly where if left off in case the restore job gets interrupted due to, say network failure.

Restoring to an alternate machine

StoreGrid client can restore its data to a different machine running another instance of StoreGrid client. This is helpful when the machine that is being restored doesn’t have enough disk space yet for the restored data.

Deployment

StoreGrid supports several diverse deployment requirements of MSPs. MSPs can deploy solution in their own data center, in their public/private cloud or can even host their service in StoreGrid Cloud running on Amazon AWS. StoreGrid client (agent) and backup server can be installed in virtual machines as well. StoreGrid doesn’t tie MSPs into a specific type of hardware or hardware vendor. Here are some of the common deployments:

On-Premise Backup Server with Remote Replication

This is a very common deployment scenario among MSPs. An On-Premise backup server is installed in each of the customers’ site. These On-Premise backup servers replicate to a common offsite Replication Server managed by the MSPs in their datacenter or on private/public cloud. On-Premise server makes backup and restore faster. The offsite replication server serves as a fall back server for restores when the On-Premise server is not available. It also provides for DR of the backup server.

Backing up directly to Offsite Backup Server

When the number of machines to be backed up per customer is less and necessary network bandwidth is available, it is probably easier to have them directly backed up to an offsite StoreGrid backup server. The offsite StoreGrid backup server can then be configured to be replicated to a StoreGrid replication server either in the same site or a different location.

Backing up directly to Offsite Backup Server hosted on Amazon AWS cloud

If MSPs don’t want to manage their own infrastructure for the backup server, they can run an instance of self-managed StoreGrid Backup Server on Amazon AWS cloud. More details can be found here.

On-Premise Backup Server with Remote Replication on Amazon Cloud

There are few other options for the remote replication server deployment:

Replication server can be hosted in Amazon Cloud: MSPs who don’t want to manage their own servers or data center for the remote replication server can run an instance of self-managed StoreGrid replication server on Amazon Cloud. The Storegrid On-Premise backup servers can replicate to this replication server running on Amazon AWS. More details can be found here.
Backup servers can directly replicate to Amazon S3 storage: MSPs who don’t want to manage their own servers or data center for the remote replication server can have the StoreGrid On-Premise backup servers directly replicate to Amazon S3 storage for data redundancy. A crashed backup server can be restored from the replicated S3 data. However, backups cannot be restored directly from S3. More details can be found here.

Easy-to-use Centralized Management

Central Management Console

StoreGrid provides a centralized console to manage backups, restores, replication jobs, license allocation, storage management, security policies etc. The console also provides detailed reports at Server, Reseller, Customer and Client machine level.

Multi-tenant Architecture

StoreGrid is built for MSPs from ground up. StoreGrid supports Reseller and Customer account management within the backup server. An MSP managing the backup server could create Reseller accounts, allocate licenses, storage space, security credentials etc. for individual accounts. Resellers can log into their account and create their respective customer accounts and manage their backups. Customers can login and monitor the status of their backups.

Inbuilt Invoicing module

StoreGrid provides inbuilt Reseller and Customer level invoicing module. Invoice Plans can be setup based on the storage used, size of data backed up, bandwidth used and based on number of machines being backed up. Different Invoice Plans can be setup for Resellers and Customers. Invoice is automatically generated and sent to the respective Reseller or Customer at the end of the invoice period.

Email based notifications

StoreGrid can send email alerts on backup and restore job status. Both the StoreGrid agent (running in the machine that is being backed up) and the backup/replication server can send email alerts. Email alerts can be configured for failed, partially completed, missed and successful backup, restore and replication jobs.

Web based User Interface

StoreGrid provides web based user console which is convenient for logging into the application remotely - either into the client machine or the backup and replication servers. StoreGrid also comes with Adobe Flex based rich client interface as an alternative option.

Managing Backup Jobs from the Backup Server

Backup jobs can be added, edited and deleted centrally from the backup server, without having to log into each of the client machines that are backing up. Properties like Bandwidth Throttling, Backup Window Settings etc on the client machines can also be managed from the backup server.

Automatic Software Update

StoreGrid can automatically push software updates added to the backup server into the different client machines running StoreGrid agent software. The updates on backup server can be pushed from the replication server to which the backup server is replicating.

Managing multiple backups servers from a single remote console

MSPs often run on-premise backup servers in each of their customer’s site and then centrally manage the multiple backup servers remotely. StoreGrid can replicate all the backup servers to a single replication server (or cluster). From this replication server, the backups servers can be centrally managed for licensing, storage allocation, monitor their health etc.

Integration with Third Party Management Solutions

StoreGrid integrates tightly with management solutions like ConnectWise, Kaseya, WHMCS, and AutoTask for invoicing, event notifications, provisioning and monitoring.

Application Aware Disaster Recovery

StoreGrid supports backing up data from several applications like Exchange, MS SQL, SharePoint Servers, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL databases and cPanel Server. On top of this, StoreGrid also support user plugins where scripts could be written to first extract the data from the applications to be backed up and then automatically backing up that data.

Exchange Server Backup

StoreGrid supports backing up all versions of Exchange server – Exchange 2010, 2007, 2003 and 2000. StoreGrid efficiently backs up Exchange server using Exchange Server APIs without impacting the live server. StoreGrid supports backup of storage groups in entirety, as well as individual databases within the storage groups. Backing up databases individually provides greater storage management flexibility. For example, critical databases might be backed up more frequently.

StoreGrid can run differential and incremental log backup of Exchange Server. StoreGrid also supports Synthetic Full Backup where complete full [backup] dump of the selected databases and all necessary log files is done but only the changed data with respect to the previous full backup /synthetic full backup is uploaded to the backup server. This is useful to keep the number incremental log files under limit and yet not having to run full backups frequently. More details on Exchange Server backup can be found here.

Exchange Mailbox Backup and Mail Level Restore

StoreGrid can back up users' mailboxes from an Exchange Sever. It can backup at a folder level. You can backup all the data of a particular user (mailbox) or you can backup just a folder (like for example the inbox of an user) or you could backup a sub-folder (like for example, a sub-folder in the inbox).

StoreGrid can also restore individual emails into the Exchange server. More details can be found here.

SQL Server Backup

StoreGrid supports backup of Microsoft SQL servers. StoreGrid uses VDI API to backup database(s). StoreGrid supports Full, Differential and Transaction Log backups. Full backup backs up the entire database. Differential backup backs up only modified extents since the previous full backup. And Transaction log backup backs up the active portion and truncates the inactive portion of the transaction log.

cPanel Server Backup and granular domain level restore

StoreGrid installed in a cPanel Server can backup the websites (domains) on a shared web hosting managed by cPanel control panel. StoreGrid backs up the entire home directory, MySQL databases, Email Forwarder settings, Email Filter settings and offers a fine granular restore of the cPanel accounts. You can also recover all the accounts in a single click in case of server crash or recover specific accounts. More details can be found here.

SharePoint Server Backup

StoreGrid supports site-collection level backup of SharePoint versions SPS2003/WSS2.0, MOSS2007/WSS3.0 and MS SharePoint 2010. StoreGrid uses SharePoint server APIs to backup SharePoint site-collections. StoreGrid uploads just the changed data during the incremental backups. More details can be found here.

Oracle backup

StoreGrid support hot backups of databases in Oracle 9i, Oracle 10G and Oracle 11G. StoreGrid uses Oracle’s RMAN utility to backup making sure the data is consistent and efficiently backed up. More details can be found here.

MySQL backup

StoreGrid supports backup of MySQL databases. StoreGrid supports Full and Incremental MySQL database backups while data is online and accessible and yet the data backed up is always consistent. Full backup type backs up the entire MySQL database. Incremental backup type backs up only modified extents since the previous Full backup. More details can be found here.

PostgreSQL Backup

StoreGrid supports backup of PostgreSQL databases using the internal PostgreSQLDump utility (pg_dump) available in the local machine. StoreGrid supports Full and Incremental PosgreSQL database backups while data is online and accessible. More details can be found here.

Screenshots

Reseller Management: Reseller Management; Add Reseller
Client Management: Client Registration; Add Client; Client Migration; Trial Client Settings
Events/Alarms/Logs: Alarm Management; User Activity Log
Reports: Client Backup Status Report; Client Information Report; Client Management Report
User Management: List of Users
License Management: MCAL Utilization History

Seed Migration: Seed Backup Migration
Server Management: Server Management; Server Dashboard; Remote Server Management
Replication Management: Replication Configuration
Synthetic Backup: Synthetic Full Backup
Sharepoint Backup: Sharepoint Backup
Bare Metal Restore(BMR): BMR Add Backup
Centralized Client Management(CCM): CCM Backup Level; CCM Client Level

Product Spec

Platform Supported

StoreGrid supports all major operating systems (physical and virtual) and processor architectures.

StoreGrid Server software that is installed in the backup server is supported on:

Linux - Redhat, CentOS, Fedora, SUSE, Ubuntu, Debian, Mandrake
Windows - Server: Windows 2003 & above | Desktop: XP & above

StoreGrid Clients Software (Agent) that is installed in the machine that you want to protect is supported on:

Linux
Windows
Mac OS X
Solaris
FreeBSD

Virtualization Platform

VMware

The StoreGrid Plug-in for VMware, based on the VMware APIs for Data Protection, enables the user to restore entire virtual machine or individual files.

Microsoft Hyper-V

The StoreGrid Plug-in for Microsoft Hyper-V enables the user to restore entire virtual machine or individual files.

Xen and KVM

The StoreGrid Plug-in for Xen and KVM allows user to protect virtual machines and application data within Xen and KVM virtual environments

Application Supported

cPanel and MySQL

High performance and automatic cPanel and MySQL server backups with complete recovery flexibility. Multiple recovery points to perform granular restores to a specific point in time and significantly reduce data loss.

Microsoft Exchange

StoreGrid Microsoft Exchange plug-in delivers rapid point-in-time and granular recovery of specific user mailboxes, email messages, shared folders directly from Exchange server backups to a production Exchange server or PST file for fast and simple recovery.

Microsoft SQL Server

Comprehensive and continuous application-aware backup and disaster recovery for SQL Server 2008 and 2005 with capability to perform hot backup of user databases and SQL components.

Microsoft SharePoint

Easily search and perform granular backup and recovery of SharePoint content in seconds for SharePoint sites and site collections

Downloads

StoreGrid's Service Provider Edition comes in two separate builds - a "Server build" that should be installed on the machine(s) that are to be configured as Backup Server or Replication server, and a "Client build" that should be installed on clients, i.e., machines that backup their files to the backup server.

Need Test Licenses?

Setting up StoreGrid

Step 1 - Install StoreGrid Server

Server Installation Video

To install StoreGrid Server in your Backup and Replication Server machines, simply download and run the installer listed below. It will automatically download and install MySQL Database Server and StoreGrid Server.

Download StoreGrid v4.2 Server Installer

StoreGrid Server Installation Guide: Windows | Linux

Step 2 - Install StoreGrid Client

Client Installation Video

Download the appropriate Client build from the download links below and install the build in the client machine you want to backup files from.

Download StoreGrid v4.2 Client Builds
StoreGrid's Rich Client for Desktops based on Adobe Flex

StoreGrid Client Installation Guide : Windows | Linux | Mac | FreeBSD | Solaris

NOTE TO EXISTING PARTNERS: PLEASE DOWNLOAD BUILDS FROM THE PARTNER ZONE ONLY
If you want to download a free trial of StoreGrid SP Edition with Cloud AMI for online backups to the Amazon Cloud, please use the builds available in our Amazon solution page.

StoreGrid SP Edition Server Installer - v4.2

Supported OS Versions	Size	Download
Windows® 7 / Vista / XP / 2000 Windows Server 2008/2003/2000, Windows SBS 2011/2008/2003 & Windows EBS 2008 [Build No. : 4202012030921]	553 KB
RedHat Linux 8.0 and later, RedHat Enterprise Linux, Fedora core 3 and later, CentOS 4.2 and later, SuSE Linux 9.x and Later, Mandrake Linux 10.0 and Later, Debian Linux 4.0 and later, Ubuntu 5.10 and later [Build No. : 4202012030921]	90.3 KB

StoreGrid SP Edition Client Builds - v4.2

Supported OS Versions	Size	Download Client Only Build
Windows® 7 / Vista / XP / 2000 Windows Server 2008/2003/2000, Windows SBS 2011/2008/2003 & Windows EBS 2008 [Build No. : 4202012030921]	34.2 MB
	33.4 MB	v4.0 Details...
RedHat Linux 8.0 and later, RedHat Enterprise Linux, Fedora core 3 and later, CentOS 4.2 and later, SuSE Linux 9.x and Later [Build No. : 4202012030921] (Unzip the zip file and then execute the bin file)	44.6 MB
Mandrake Linux 10.0 and Later [Build No. : 4202012030921] (Unzip the zip file and then execute the bin file)	44.4 MB
Debian Linux 4.0 and later, Gentoo and Ubuntu 5.10 and later [Build No. : 4202012030921] (Unzip the zip file and then execute the bin file)	44.9 MB
FREEBSD 6 [Build No. : 4202012030921] (Unzip the zip file and then execute the bin file)	49.7 MB
FREEBSD 7 [Build No. : 4202012030921] (Unzip the zip file and then execute the bin file)	50.3 MB
Mac OS X 10.3.x (Panther) and 10.4.x (Tiger) for PowerPcs Developer Tools not needed! [Build No. : 4202012030921]	52.6 MB
Mac OS X 10.5.x(Leopard), 10.6.x (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion) for Intel PCs Developer Tools not needed! [Build No. : 4202012030921]	47.7 MB
Solaris (For Solaris 10 - Intel) [Build No. : 4202012030921] (Unzip the zip file and then execute the bin file)	43.1 MB

Building StoreGrid Recovery CD ISO v4.2

StoreGrid Recovery CD can be used to recover backup images to a Physical machine or convert the backup image to a Virtual machines.

StoreGrid provides a Recovery CD builder utility to help build the StoreGrid Recovery CD. Download the Recovery CD builder and follow the instructions from the link to build the Recovery CD.

StoreGrid supports Bare Metal Restore (BMR) and Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) conversion. It works on all Windows 2003 & above servers, Windows XP & above desktops. It supports backing up the entire image of a disk or specific partitions.

Note: StoreGrid 4.2 Recovery CD will not work with images backed up using StoreGrid 4.0/4.1. Please follow the instructions in the link to restore StoreGrid 4.0/4.1 images. You can download earlier version(4.0/4.1) Recovery CD here.

Releavant Help documents
Configure Disk Image Backup Schedule
Restore Image Backup Data
Restoring the client machine through StoreGrid's Recovery CD

Resources

StoreGrid Hosting Provider Edition is designed for Hosting and Cloud Service Providers to deliver full and self-managed backup and recovery services.

Product Documentation

Datasheet
Server User Guide

Server Installation Guides

Windows

Linux

Client User Guide
Client Installation Guides

  Windows

  Linux

  Mac

  FreeBSD

  Solaris