Acronis explains the evolution of backup

The world of backup is a complex one. Serguei Beloussov, innovator and a thought leader in virtualisation, data centre automation, and cloud computing, Founder and CEO of backup and disaster recovery company Acronis, points out that traditional backup has in many ways lagged behind the way computing has evolved today. 

"Traditional platforms are like a Swiss army knife; you can slice and dice everything but you cannot slice and dice everything well," he said. 

Beloussov explained that traditional backup works on the premise of a centralised IT infrastructure, whereas businesses today may have to support other models of computing, including big data, virtualisation, the cloud, mobile devices and the bring your own device (BYOD) trend.

"Many data protection products on the market today provide a one-size-fits-all, heavy, traditional platform to protect all types of data on all types of devices and storage. Unfortunately, due to the cost and complexity of those products, they are suitable for large organisations that have both the budget to purchase expensive software platform and the IT resources to maintain them," Beloussov said.

"The reality is that data comes in many forms - physical, virtual, cloud. Data can be accessed through multiple devices and this includes bring your own device (BYOD) as well. Data itself exists in many forms like applications, the operating system, and data."

According to Beloussov, the typical backup product is file-based and interacts with the operating system. "These technologies are less reliable than the new generation image-based backups and can often lead to backup failures, unpredictable restores and the loss of data that was not captured properly," he said. 

While a file backup basically copies individual files, an image backup would copy what's on the computer in its entirety, from the applications and the way they are configured to the operating system, allowing users to literally pick up where they left off.

Beloussov added that many backup products carry limitations on the storage media they support for backups. "Some only support backup to disk or backup to cloud. These restrictions reduce protection options, which can increase downtime and the risk of data loss. Many companies need to back up to tape to meet their compliance requirements, so any backup product that does not support this directly will create extra work, resources, infrastructure, and costs for those companies," he said.

What about appliances that specialise in backup then? Beloussov says they have weaknesses too. "Appliance-based backup products have a single point of failure due to the appliance governing all the backup processes and throughput. This creates massive risk of data loss should the appliance fail," he warned.

A lot more flexibility in backup is required, Beloussov said. "Current backup products that don’t support restore to dissimilar hardware or to multiple hypervisors severely restrict recovery options which can significantly increase recovery time resulting in extended costs of downtime," he said.

Beloussov founded Acronis to address these issues. The core Acronis AnyData Engine is an alternative to a traditional backup system, he said, protecting virtual, physical and cloud infrastructure for servers and workstations and support for cloud, disk and tape to meet compliance requirements and enable storage of data in multiple locations. Businesses can focus only on the backup modules they need, integrating more solutions as required. 

Such modules are optimised for specific workloads. They include Acronis True Image for personal backup and data protection, Acronis Backup for small server environments, and Acronis Backup Advanced larger server environments. 

Each product draws on specific functionality provided by the Acronis AnyData Engine, which is backed by over 100 patents, Beloussov said. For instance, Acronis Backup uses the technology to capture, store and recover data, while Acronis Access uses Acronis AnyData Engine functionality to provide secure and reliable access to corporate data from mobile devices. 

"With Acronis’ unified policies, system administrators have the ability to define and manage consistent data protection policies and still get highly efficient, granular control," he said.

Acronis counts active users of Acronis corporate products in the thousands, and those using Acronis True Image for personal use in the tens of thousands. "Over 30% of Acronis’ global sales come from the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region. We are expecting that number to grow to 50% of Acronis’ global sales by 2019," Beloussov said.

Part of that growth will be fuelled by new products from Acronis. "For the next six months, we are planning to focus on new cloud-ready architecture and delivery of technology in the cloud and on-premise. Our aim is to look for major enhancements via our backup as a service (BaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) solutions in addition to backup-to-cloud capabilities," Beloussov shared. 

*Images from Acronis.