Acronis Expands Data Protection Platform to Hybrid Environments

Recognising a shift in enterprise needs
for data protection, Acronis
International GmbH has expanded beyond the
backup and DR market to encompass a broader strategy for delivering
data availability, accessibility and protection.

The adoption of virtualisation and
cloud computing, alongside tablets, smartphones and the Mac within
businesses increases the risk of data loss and leakage, which cannot
be prevented with conventional approaches using outdated technologies
from legacy vendors. With focus on the protection and movement of
data, regardless of platform or environment, the company is
presenting further expansion of its platform to address this risk for
organisations of all sizes.

In 2012, Acronis’ virtualisation data
protection business grew by nearly 60% worldwide. This, alongside the
continued cloud business growth, is evidence of the demand for a platform that eliminates IT complexity and allows
companies to establish one set of data protection policies, using one
technology, across all environments. The increase in hybrid IT
environments require approaches to solve the data protection and
availability problems these complex environments create.

"Companies are adopting new
technologies faster than they can plan effective data protection
strategies. Yet IT is responsible for data protection across all
technologies and environments. After all, data can only be utilised
if it can be securely accessed, protected and available regardless of
platform or environment, tablet or smartphone," said Alex
Pinchev, president and CEO, Acronis. "Acronis is delivering a
comprehensive platform strategy that allows customers’ to more simply
and reliably mitigate the risk to data in today’s world, in ways no
legacy vendor can. By keeping data at the center of our development
effort, we focus on removing the constraints of hybrid environments
by enabling the secure, protected movement of data while reducing
risks of data loss and leakage."

The developments include an
architecture that enables organisations to integrate protection for
data created on a Mac platform, which was also announced, as well as
the extension of the Acronis Unified Platform to include plug-ins for
data-intensive applications such as SQL Server which are moving to
virtual environments.

"We see the forces of big data,
virtualisation, cloud and the growing population of workers with
three or more disparate devices changing the landscape of data
protection forever," commented Laura DuBois, program VP for
the storage practice at IDC. "Our research shows that with
the next wave of virtualisation users will increasingly embrace
multiple hypervisors in their environments. Organisations will be
facing an increasingly complex management and security burden."

From the initial imaging product
development in 2002, the company has always focused on the protection
of data, regardless of platform or environment, enabling movement and
efficiency. The imaging technology central to Acronis innovation
enables the granular availability of every object, file, machine or
system – regardless of location. Acronis’ Unified Platform, which
supports all major hypervisors, has been on the market for nearly two
years and is proven in thousands of networks worldwide. These latest
extensions will bring flexibility to an organisations’ ability to
move, access and protect critical data.