Acronis vmProtect 6 ($499/CPU) Hopes to Beat Veeam

At VMworld 2011, Acronis Inc. launched a backup and disaster recovery solution for VMware customers.

Acronis vmProtect 6 has been engineered exclusively for VMware vSphere servers (v4.0, 4.1 or later) using ESX and ESXi hypervisors. It provides businesses with a  disaster recovery solution for agentless backup and recovery of their VMware virtual environments.

Priced at $499 per CPU, and with unlimited P2V (physical to virtual) migrations, vmProtect 6 represents a backup, migration and disaster recovery solution for the growing number of businesses moving to a VMware virtualized server environment.

With an install-to-start backup time of approximately five minutes, vmProtect 6 can recover a virtual machine directly from a backup image, without having to do a full restore, and actual recovery times can take less than a minute. Independent tests show it to be three times faster than the leading competitor to install and start to backup VMware vSphere virtual servers. (Taneja Group Technology Validation Report, August 2011)

vmProtect 6 can be installed as a virtual appliance, eliminating the need to purchase any additional hardware and minimizing memory consumption and management overhead. The backup process itself also becomes a quick and easy task. A web-based interface allows remote management, even on a smartphone, simplifying management and reporting tasks.

vmProtect 6 offers both image and file-level recovery options, which allows users to restore precisely the data that is needed. The granular nature of the application makes it possible to select individual volumes to back up and, for faster backups, users can analyse the file system to avoid backing up unused blocks and exclude individual files and folders such as temporary or page files.

Data deduplication and compression capabilities are included for free with vmProtect 6 and these further reduce the time taken to back up and recover as well as cutting storage costs. In addition, for added security, backups can be encrypted using industry-standard 256 bit AES algorithms.

"Protecting the virtual infrastructure isn’t as easy as it seems at first glance," commented Arun Taneja, founding analyst at The Taneja Group. "At virtual infrastructure scale, every second in a backup counts, and every CPU cycle consumed by a virtual appliance means one more chance of interrupting compute."

Jason Donahue, CEO at Acronis, said: "Protecting VMware servers should be neither complex nor costly. By using a solution that speaks directly to VMware requirements, businesses can accelerate their virtualization adoption. IT managers need never question the status, availability or recovery time of their virtual data again."

"Protecting your VMware vSphere machines has never been this easy. I like the simplicity of this product and I think it is a great choice for smaller organizations. This is the easiest, most intuitive way to backup your virtual machines. It’s a high performance solution for backup and recovery for VMware users," said Kurtis Berger, Information Technology Manager, Provider Advantage NW, Inc., a beta tester of the product.