The exponential increase in data threats means it has never been more important for businesses to get their backup systems right. Complete data protection and disaster recovery strategies are essential business processes and those that don't have them in place are recklessly putting their business and their employee's livelihoods on the line.
This doesn't need to be challenging as there is a wealth of business-class data protection solutions on the market. The best ones use a 'hybrid' combination of on-premises and cloud backup that ensures multiple copies of your data are maintained in different physical locations so it's always available for recovery.
Backup isn't about keeping a few copies of files – it's about providing a full business recovery plan in the event of a disaster. And by this, we mean anything from an accidentally deleted file, a corrupted database, a data breach, or a ransomware attack to burglary, fire, or flood.
Ransomware attacks are a clear and present danger and a valuable feature is file versioning where you can instruct the backup software to retain multiple file copies going days, weeks, and months. If you get a ransomware demand, you may be able to browse and restore them to a state before they were encrypted.
Setting backup encryption adds even more protection while immutable storage is a great defense against cybercriminals that attempt to breach the backup software and delete all your backups before encrypting the source data.
The most common backup strategy is '3-2-1' where you retain three up-to-date copies of your data, back it up to two different types of storage media, and keep one copy off-site. You could add immutable storage as a fourth backup stage and create a '3-2-1-1' strategy while smart businesses will regularly test their backups to make sure they can recover data from all archive locations with zero errors, effectively creating a 3-2-1-1-0 strategy.
All businesses will have different data protection requirements and the products we've featured are available as free time-limited trials (including the hardware model) so you can test them out first. Data loss and disasters are a lot more costly to recover from than investing in backup software so read on to see which one will keep your business safe.
Acronis' Cyber Protect puts a different spin on data protection as it teams up a hybrid backup with full-strength cybersecurity and endpoint protection. Businesses that don't want the expense of separate products will find this appealing as one subscription takes care of everything and it's all managed from a single cloud portal.
Cyber Protect Advanced takes the Standard edition and adds features such as Windows patch management, backup malware scans, and an endpoint detection and remediation (EDR) service. Ransomware protection comes into play with immutable backups and a compliance mode that stops malicious actors from deleting backups.
Supported platforms include Windows, macOS and Linux systems, iOS and Android mobiles plus many popular on-premises business apps, virtualization hosts, and cloud apps. Agent deployment for workstations and servers is tedious though, as they must be downloaded and manually installed after which they generate a unique registration code and then appear on the portal's devices page.
The cloud portal dashboard is a busy affair but it can easily be customized by adding or removing widgets and dragging them to your preferred position. Systems are placed in groups and assigned protection plans which include backup settings, encryption passwords, schedules, and all cybersecurity settings.
For hybrid backups, on-site and off-site storage locations can be assigned to plans with network shares and the Acronis cloud repository supported. Along with swift file and folder recovery services for remote workstations and servers, the portal provides an impressive range of restore features for Hyper-V and VMware.
Within workstation and server plans, you can enable real-time malware scanning, apply URL filtering, schedule vulnerability assessments, and run patch management remediation tasks. Activate EDR and you can see lists of all incidents filtered by severity and mitigation status and browse a threat investigation page which provides a kill chain diagram, details of how the attack developed, and the processes it interacted with.
Arcserve UDP (unified data protection) is a one-stop shop for backup and recovery of all your physical and virtual systems. Available as a turnkey appliance or software only, UDP offers the choice of private on-premises or cloud management.
Software installation is deftly handled by a wizard that helps create protection plans, add nodes, define a backup destination, and schedule jobs. As physical nodes are declared, UDP pushes an agent to them while virtualization hosts use agentless backup.
UDP's RPS (recovery point server) defines where data is backed up and provides AES-256 encryption, deduplication plus replication services. File and folder recovery is simple and UDP's smart virtual standby feature can spin up a backup VM in seconds if it loses contact with the primary node. For Microsoft 365 protection, you want to consider Arcserve's separate SaaS cloud product as UDP authorisation is incredibly complex.
For cloud management, you install a gateway component on a separate Windows host and use the migration tool to move everything over to your cloud console account. This only took us ten minutes and we could then use the portal to remotely manage all backup and recovery services on our on-premises UDP installation.
Read our full review Arcserve UDP 9.1 review for more information.
Barracuda's Backup appliances are ideal for managing a hybrid data protection strategy as they do it all for you. They provide on-site backup, cloud replication, and data restoration services plus optional site-to-site replication.
The appliance is managed from the cloud and Barracuda provides agents for Windows, macOS, and Linux hosts in the web portal. The same agent is used for all Windows workstations and servers and local backup space is used sparingly as we've always found Barracuda's variable block-level deduplication to be very efficient.
Systems are declared as backup sources and the beauty of this solution is during scheduled job creation, you tick one extra box so local backups are automatically replicated to Barracuda's cloud storage. Backup source files and folders can be browsed from the portal's restore window where you choose the Restore option to retrieve them from the appliance or use the Download option to get them from the cloud.
Hyper-V and VMware VMs can be restored directly from the appliance to their respective hosts or to alternative locations and if the appliance isn't available you can download their virtual disks from your cloud repository. VMs can be restored directly to the appliance if the hypervisor is down and the Cloud LiveBoot feature allows VMs to be hosted in Barracuda's cloud for up to seven days for testing, backup validation, and file recovery.
IDrive Business is ideal for companies concerned about hidden costs as its subscriptions are based only on cloud capacity. Value looks even better as all plans include unlimited workstations, servers, Hyper-V, VMware, and application support.
IDrive's hybrid backups can secure data to local drives or network shares, apps are provided for protecting Qnap and Synology NAS appliances and it offers disk image backups, cloning and continuous data protection (CDP). Even cloud file syncing between IDrive computers is included and subscriptions enable an equal amount of sync space.
Client deployment is a cinch as email invitations are issued from the portal which provide links for users to create backup accounts, select AES-256 encryption, and download the desktop app. Businesses with remote workers will approve of IDrive as the price includes unlimited users and administrators can remotely access their desktop app, create or edit backup jobs, set schedules, and run restore tasks.
Backup sets contain details of the data you want backing up and can be scheduled to run at regular intervals. Files and folders are easily restored using the local agent or web portal and IDrive provides basic ransomware protection by retaining up to 30 file versions.
IDrive also offers optional cloud-to-cloud (C2C) backup services for Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. These are managed from a dedicated portal with the MS365 component costing £16 per user/year to secure OneDrive, Exchange, SharePoint and Teams accounts.
Veritas Backup Exec is a classy on-premises data protection solution that combines extreme ease of use with a wealth of backup and restore services. SMBs will approve of its Simple Core Pack licensing schemes as these are based only on compute instances which can be a physical Windows or Linux system, a virtual machine (VM), or ten MS365 users.
Easily managed from a central console, Backup Exec pushes its agents out to Windows systems as they are declared, and adding a VMware vSphere host just requires its IP address and credentials. MS365 doesn't get any easier either, as you add your tenant using the web link provided and enter the unique device code it generates for you.
Backup job creation is simple and plenty of storage locations are supported including physical and virtual disks, cloud, tape, deduplicating stores, and network shares plus immutable AWS and Azure cloud storage. Backups can be encrypted for extra security and a range of predefined strategies is provided where backup jobs can include multiple stages, each with their own schedule.
Data restoration is another winner as we could view files, folders, and volumes on selected sources, pick a recovery point, and decide where to send them. There are plenty more choices as Instant VM Recovery uses an existing backup to spin up a new VM on the same host and creating a simplified recovery disk brings bare metal recovery into play.
Backup Exec is a well-rounded data backup solution offering complete protection for physical and virtual environments. It's easy to use and very affordable with a starter five instance license costing an agreeable £498 per year.
Read our full review Veritas Backup Exec review for more information
