Acronis

Acronis Backup 12.5 is the world’s easiest and fastest backup solution for all data, whether it is located on-premises, in remote systems, in private and public clouds, or on mobile devices. With enhanced backup validation and block chain-based authentication of users’; backups with Acronis Notary, Acronis Backup 12.5 is the most reliable backup solution on the market today.

Acronis Backup 12.5 suite delivers a wealth of new features, including more versatile backup options, broader platform support, granular Exchange mailbox protection and even built-in ransomware protection. One key improvement is virtualisation support: Acronis Backup now works with six hypervisor platforms, and can automatically convert backups to VMs.

Acronis also defies those who've been predicting the death of tape, by adding support for standalone tape drives, autoloaders and libraries for automated archiving. Backup 12.5 is available in standard and advanced editions; the former version, can be upgraded to the latter by simply adding a new license.

The management server can also be deployed in the cloud, but this doesn't currently match all the features of the on-premise version. A wide range of backup destinations is supported: users can choose local and network shared storage, SFTP (secure FTP) servers, tape drives or Acronis' own cloud storage service. The Advanced version allows users to install the Storage Node service on their own Windows host, which provides central resource management and is required for the deduplication service.

A user’s backup strategy is assembled in the form of "plans", which bring together backup sources, applications, destinations, schedules, retention periods and encryption options. Backups default to "always incremental", but users can change this to suit their needs; traditionalists can also choose an old-school GFS ("grandfather, father, son") strategy.