VM Backup & Recovery — 5–15 Minute RTO
Recover a single file from a backed-up VM, recover the entire VM to different hardware, or restore a specific snapshot - all in 5–15 minutes.
- RTO: 5–15 minutes for most VMs
- RPO: Every 15 minutes or more frequent snapshots
- Included - no separate VM backup licensing
- Critical applications back online faster
- Native hypervisor integration (KVM/QEMU, VMware-compatible)
- Granular restore: individual files, volumes, entire VM
- Live migration capability
- Point-in-time snapshots and recovery testing
- Simple recovery workflow (click, select VM, recover)
- Testing capability without affecting production
- Health checks before failover
- Centralized recovery from cloud dashboard
Granular Recovery Options
Recover entire VM
Instant restore to same or different hardware with no manual configuration.
Recover individual files
Mount VM snapshot, browse file system, extract specific files without full restore.
Recover volumes
Restore specific disks without recovering the whole VM.
Live migration
Recover to different hardware with near-zero downtime. A brief reboot is required to cut over to the restored VM.
You Choose Where the VM Runs
ShadowCradle stores the backup data. When you need to spin up a VM from that data, you are not limited to the appliance that holds it. Any peer ShadowCradle appliance on the network can act as the virtualization engine - pulling data from its peer and running the recovered VM locally. Dissimilar hardware is fully supported: the receiving appliance does not need to match the original in CPU, RAM, or storage size.
backup data + hypervisor
The appliance that holds the backup data also runs the recovered VMs. Simple, fast, and always available.
A peer appliance streams backup data from Appliance A and runs the recovered VMs locally. Hardware specs do not need to match - any peer can serve as the compute engine.
Use a VCradle appliance as the hypervisor engine for ShadowCradle recovery workloads - bringing enterprise-grade virtualization compute to your backup infrastructure without additional licensing complexity.
Boot the ShadowCradle LiveCD (Ubuntu-based ISO) on any physical machine. The ISO auto-launches a built-in QEMU hypervisor, connects to the backup appliance over iSCSI, mounts the backup volumes directly, and starts running your VMs on bare metal - no OS installation or existing infrastructure needed.
iSCSI target
iSCSI initiator
Use your existing VMware ESXi, Proxmox, Hyper-V, or any platform with an iSCSI initiator. ShadowCradle exposes backup volumes as iSCSI targets. Your hypervisor connects directly and presents the volumes - VMs run from backup data with no copying required.
VM Recovery Comparison
| Capability | ShadowCradle | Datto SIRIS |
|---|---|---|
| Instant VM recovery | ✅ 5–15 min | ⚠️ Via appliance failover |
| Granular file recovery | ✅ | ⚠️ Requires specialist |
| Live recovery testing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cloud VM support (AWS/Azure) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Live migration (near-zero downtime) | ✅ | ⚠️ Requires planning |
| Peer appliance as virtualization engine | ✅ | ❌ Not supported |
| Dissimilar hardware recovery | ✅ | ⚠️ Same model required |
| Hypervisor support | ✅ Multiple | ✅ Multiple |
| Application-consistent snapshots | ✅ | ✅ |
Real-World Use Cases
Ransomware Recovery
Ransomware infects VM; must recover to clean state within 30 minutes.
Hardware Failure - 12 VMs
Physical server fails; must recover 12 VMs within 2 hours.
Rapid Scale-Out
Need to clone a database VM 5 times for dev environment by tomorrow morning.
Key Advantages
No Guesses. You Know Exactly How Long Recovery Takes.
ShadowCradle periodically boots every protected system in an isolated test environment - your entire back office, virtualised from the latest backup, running live. You see what comes up, how long it takes, and any issues before you ever need to recover for real. By the time a real incident happens, your RTO is not a guess. It is a number you have already measured.
How Fast Can Your Environment Recover?
Configure your server environment and storage pool speed to see an estimated recovery timeline. All systems boot in parallel directly from backup - no data copy needed.