StorageCraft, the data protection and recovery vendor, has bolstered its ShadowXafe data protection suite with new support for Microsoft Hyper-V, deeper controls and flexible billing for MSPs. It also comes with all-new network tunneling capabilities for improved scaling within customer deployments.

The improvements largely are designed to make it easier for MSPs to provide services to customers using ShadowXafe, Jeannine Edwards, senior director of channel marketing for StorageCraft, told Channel Futures.

StorageCraft’s Jeannine Edwards

“MSPs rely on the ability to standardize on platforms to drive service desk efficiencies,” said Edwards. “ShadowXafe is now available in an MSP offering to provide easier billing and recurring revenue.”

ShadowXafe, the company’s flagship application, includes data monitoring, data protection and data recovery for data centers from a single console, for virtual machines and for traditional  server hardware, whether on-premises or in the cloud. ShadowXafe can be used to replicate data to a public cloud, a StorageCraft Cloud or to an off-premises location. The application supports agentless and agent-based configurations.

The latest improvements include MSP-friendly, flexible billing and invoicing for easier customer billing and support for Hyper-V applications, in addition to its previous support for VMware.

The new network tunneling feature provides users with management capabilities for thousands of devices without having to reconfigure firewalls, according to StorageCraft. ShadowXafe is available immediately through StorageCraft resellers and distributors.

“Depending on whether you’re a small- or medium-size enterprise or an MSP, solving the data protection and recovery dilemma is a burden or a business opportunity,” said Shridar Subramanian, vice president of marketing and product management for StorageCraft. “SMEs struggle to cope because of limited skills or budget; meanwhile, MSPs miss the opportunity to scale and respond to growing demand. ShadowXafe solves both sides of the equation.”

Anthony Elwell, IT manager for the Maxwell IT Company, an MSP and StorageCraft partner in Seattle, said his company sells StorageCraft’s data-protection services, which include improved capabilities under the latest version.

Maxwell IT’s Anthony Elwell

Elwell said he’s been using the beta release of the upcoming ShadowXafe application for the last few months and has been happy with its increased performance and enhanced capabilities.

“It merges all three of their most popular products for us,” including an image manager for data backups, and makes it simpler to manage and configure backup and recovery capabilities for end user customers, he said. “They didn’t just mush them together. They took the best of all three and streamlined them.”

Elwell said he is so satisfied with the new features in the improved ShadowXafe application that he plans to upgrade his systems to it as soon as it is available.

About a year ago, at a StorageCraft training session, company officials told him that these improved and streamlined capabilities were in the product pipeline for the future for ShadowXafe, so he has been watching for them to try them out.

“Companies often say such things but don’t deliver,” said Elwell. “But in this case, they are delivering. Our clients trust us to make the right decisions for them. And StorageCraft support is hands down the best support that I’ve ever worked with. Even if they call me back and I can’t answer, they keep calling me back and they don’t give up on it.”