(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Data protection software developer R1Soft (www.r1soft.com), developer of Linux Hot Copy, a free command line utility that takes instant point-in-time snapshots of online Linux file systems, has announced the availability of HCP Beta Version 3.3.1, which adds adds the ability to take multiple point-in-time snapshots of online disk volumes.
According to R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies, in its Friday announcement, the latest release of Hot Copy Beta offers readable and writable snapshots, which are useful for everything from backups, upgrades, testing system changes, and security audits. Hot Copy can even be used to detect corrupt file systems while the server is online, something that typically requires server down time and maintenance.
Windows Server administrators have been able to perform online disk snapshots as a default feature since Windows Server 2003. Linux admins have been harder pressed to find volume shadow copy solutions for their Linux servers. R1Soft unveiled Hot Copy in November 2008 as a long-awaited missing piece for Linux-based enterprise IT systems.
“In an interview with IDG in 2008 Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed Linux runs on 60 percent of the servers,” R1Soft vice president David Wartell said in a statement. “It has always been amazing to me that the operating system running on 60 percent of the world’s servers had no universal volume snapshot tool. Volume snapshots are a very important tool for server administration, yet for Linux administrators taking an online disk snapshot has historically been a complicated challenge. With R1Soft Hot Copy Linux, volume snapshots are easy and available to all Linux servers.”
Hot Copy creates a point-in-time online volume snapshot of the disk while the system is running, without interrupting applications even on the busiest Linux servers. 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. These changed blocks are then efficiently stored in the unused space on the hard disk.
“Sure there has always historically been Linux Volume Manager Snapshots, however LVM does not directly support many of the popular storage configurations like basic partitions, virtual disks for Xen, and replicated block devices. Further, Linux LVM Snapshots require an administrator to create dedicated snapshot storage ahead of time, typically when the server is first installed, and this is often forgotten until someone needs a volume snapshot. All these challenges are a thing of the past for Linux now that Hot Copy is available” said Wartell.
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