(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Data protection software developer R1Soft (www.r1soft.com) has announced its upcoming release of a free beta version of Hot Copy for Linux, a command line utility that takes instant snapshots of disks or volumes on any Linux server, providing an unprecedented level of flexibility for IT administrators.
According to an official statement, R1Soft’s free Linux Hot Copy beta version, scheduled for release in late November, creates a disk snapshots without interrupting system applications. Also, as block-level changes are made to the device, Hot Copy makes a backup copy of only the changed blocks instead of replicating the entire drive, increasing efficiency.
“Hot Copy is big news for anyone that has to maintain a Linux server,” R1Soft vice president David Wartell said in a statement. “With Windows you have Volume Shadow Copy Service. There is nothing really like VSS for Linux servers; it’s a big missing piece for Linux Enterprise IT.”
While Wartell notes that the Logical Volume Manager for the Linux operating system manages disk drives and similar mass-storage devices, however, he notes that LVM adoption is not universal nor ideal.
“The challenge with LVM is that most servers don’t run LVM, and even if they do the LVM volumes have to be configured ahead of time with spare disk space,” Wartell said. “Linux server admins need a simple command that allows snapshots on any Linux server at any time. This is what Hot Copy does. After installing the Hot Copy RPM or .deb package it’s one simple hcp command and they have an instant point-in-time snapshot on any Linux disk.”
According to R1Soft, Hot Copy is not LVM-based and has also improved on LVM in many ways. For instance, Hot Copy has the unprecedented ability to create readable and writable backups in Linux.
It can also be easily mounted on a running Linux server without changing storage configuration. By storing changed data on unused portions of existing drives, Hot Copy does not require a dedicated storage device, and can operate on any limited amount of free drive space. Snapshot data can also be used with legacy backup applications like tar and rsync.
R1Soft said Hot Copy is also flexible and useful for day-to-day administration. For instance, administrators can take a snapshot prior to making a server change. Hot Copy can even be used to run file system check utilities like fsck while the system is online, which would normally require a server to be shutdown.
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