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.
cPanel and Plesk Server Backup with granular domain level restore
StoreGrid installed in a cPanel and Plesk Servers can backup the websites (domains) on a shared web hosting. StoreGrid backs up the entire home directory, MySQL databases and offers a fine granular restore of the cPanel and Plesk accounts. You can also recover all the accounts in a single click in case of server crash or recover specific accounts.
Single solution for all types of backups
StoreGrid can be your single solution for all your backup needs – may it be backing 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.
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.
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. 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) to back up the data from the virtual machines. StoreGrid can also backup the entire virtual machine in VMware.
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.
Propriety format for efficient backup storage
StoreGrid stores backup data in its propriety consolidated file format. This makes StoreGrid highly efficient and scalable under heavy concurrent backup load even while backing up huge number of small files. The storage format also makes sure the search and retrieval of backups are very efficient for restores.
Application Aware Disaster Recovery
StoreGrid supports backing up data from several applications like Exchange, MS SQL, SharePoint Servers, MySQL 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.
cPanel and Plesk Server Backup with granular domain level restore
StoreGrid installed in a cPanel and Plesk Servers can backup the websites (domains) on a shared web hosting. StoreGrid backs up the entire home directory, MySQL databases and offers a fine granular restore of the cPanel and Plesk accounts. You can also recover all the accounts in a single click in case of server crash or recover specific accounts.
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.
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.
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.
Easy and Instant Restores
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 or backup server
Restore jobs can be initiated from the agent machine or from the backup server. This provides the ability for Hosting Providers to restore data at the server which they manage and ship the disk with the restored data to their customer.
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.
Integrations
StoreGrid integrates with third party management solutions that MSPs commonly use like Kaseya, ConnectWise, AutoTask and WHMCS. StoreGrid backups and restore jobs can be centrally managed and monitored through these tools. Also StoreGrid’s inbuilt invoicing modules integrate with the billing modules of some of these solutions.
Ubersmith
StoreGrid integrates with Ubersmith for provisioning, billing and ticketing. cPanel users can sign up for backup service, and upgrade their storage.
AutoTask
StoreGrid integrates it event notifications with AutoTask. Alerts generated from StoreGrid on backup, restore job failures, missed backups, storage space filling up etc. can show up in AutoTask’s ticketing system under the respective customer.
ConnectWise
MSPs can monitor their customers’ backup and restore jobs, and available disk space directly in ConnectWise. It even lets the customer accounts in StoreGrid be mapped to the appropriate company accounts in ConnectWise so that service tickets are created under the respective accounts.
Kaseya
StoreGrid generates events and email alerts on backup and restore job failures which can be captured on Kaseya. StoreGrid also provides silent installation scripts to automate and ease the initial deployment of StoreGrid in multiple customer machines through Kaseya.
WHMCS
StoreGrid integrates with WHMCS to push customer invoice details. Similarly events generated in StoreGrid can be pushed into the respective customer account in AutoTask. Customers signing up on WHMCS for the backup service can be automatically be signed up on StoreGrid Server and provisioned for backups.
Complete Protection for Your Virtual Environment
StoreGrid can backup entire virtual machine centrally without having to install the agent in each of the virtual machines. StoreGrid currently supports backing up of VMware. Backing up Hyper-V VMs, Xen, KVM virtual machines and Virtuozzo Containers is currently in development and will be available soon.
Backing up VMware ESX Servers
StoreGrid uses VMware’s APIs to backup virtual machines (VMs) running on ESX and ESXi Servers. A single installation of StoreGrid client can backup VMs running on multiple ESX/ESXi servers. StoreGrid client can also connect to vCenter Server to backup all the VMs that the vCenter server manages. StoreGrid can directly backup the VMs from the source to the backup server without having to first dump the data locally in a temporary storage in StoreGrid client machine. StoreGrid supports incremental backup of VMware VMs.
ESX 3.0, ESX 3.5, ESXi 3.5, ESX 4.x, ESXi 4.x, ESXi 5.x and VMware Server 2.0 Virtual Machines are supported
Deployment
StoreGrid supports several diverse deployment requirements of Hosting Providers. They can deploy solution in their own data center. StoreGrid client (agent) and backup server can be installed in virtual machines as well. StoreGrid doesn’t tie them into a specific type of hardware or hardware vendor.
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.
Easy-to-use Centralized Management
Central Management Console
StoreGrid provides a centralized console to manage backups, restores, 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 Ubersmith, ConnectWise, Kaseya, WHMCS, and AutoTask for provisioning, invoicing, event notifications and monitoring.