New free beta version takes instant readable and writable snapshots of disks or volumes on Linux server, providing flexibility for IT administrators.

R1Soft, a developer of Continuous Data Protection, announced yesterday the release of its free beta version of Hot Copy for Linux, a new command line utility that takes instant, readable and writable snapshots of disks or volumes on any Linux server, providing flexibility for IT administrators.

The company states that Hot Copy creates a point-in-time snapshot of the disk while the system is running, without interrupting applications even on the busiest Linux servers. It further states that 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. The company adds that these changed blocks are then efficiently stored in the unused space on the hard disk.

"Hot Copy is big news for anyone that has to maintain a Linux server. 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. You have LVM snapshots of course, and 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. 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," said David Wartell, Vice President of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies, Inc.