Acronis, a global leader in hybrid data protection and storage, today changed the future of data backup protection with the latest release of Acronis Backup 12.5, the world's most innovative backup solution offering unprecedented levels of protection for all sizes of infrastructure. The new Acronis Backup 12.5 comes in two editions: Standard and Advanced, with an easy in-place upgrade. 

Acronis Backup 12.5 is the world's fastest, most reliable, complete, and cost-effective backup offering available on the market today. It allows businesses to start small with Acronis Backup 12.5 Standard edition and scale to Acronis Backup 12.5 Advanced as required by their growing infrastructure, simply by changing license keys. This gives partners the flexibility to meet the needs of small and large businesses with the same product.

Acronis Backup 12.5 delivers the best value for businesses, bringing the cost down by as much as 30 percent compared to its competitors. The reliability of this technology has been validated by more than 50,000 users who adopted Acronis Backup 12 Standard released in July 2016.

New features in Acronis Backup 12.5 Advanced edition

Building upon the existing ease of use, reliability, and new hybrid cloud architecture of Acronis Backup 12, the new advanced functionality creates a powerful, feature-rich solution that supports more than 20 platforms. These include Windows, Office 365, Azure, Linux, Mac OS X, Oracle, VMWare, Hyper-V, Red Hat Virtualization, Linux KVM, Citrix XenServer, iOS, and Android:

• Unified web interface for the entire infrastructure
• Admin roles and delegations for distributed infrastructures
• Support for six hypervisors to provide migration platform options
• Bare-metal recovery automation and remote boot media control to reduce RTO of remote site recovery
• SAN storage snapshots to reduce hypervisor resource utilization
• Oracle backup and granular recovery
• Advanced tape support for increased granularity and simplified management
• Advanced reporting for detailed insights and corporate compliance
• Disaster recovery capability for emergency data recovery locally and in the cloud
• Backup validation process ensures recoverability
• Acronis Notary^TM to ensure the authenticity of data
  

"The new release is transformative for IT," said Jason Buffington, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group, an IT research service. "Acronis Backup 12.5 Advanced is the world's first enterprise-grade data protection solution with a consumer-grade user interface. It makes the complex job of data protection easy for any IT administrator or business owner. One computer or a thousand, physical or virtual, on-premises or cloud - this robust solution is the newest achievement of Acronis' proven engineering excellence and it works equally well with organizations of all sizes."

New in both Standard and Advanced editions

Businesses of all sizes will benefit from more than 170 advancements common to both editions, addressing today's hybrid cloud environment and setting Acronis apart from the competition.  Highlights include:

• Customizable dashboards for quick insights into the backup infrastructure
• Acronis Active Protection^TM to stop ransomware attacks
• Acronis Instant Restore^TM for 15-second RTOs
• Acronis vmFlashback^TM for quick incremental recovery of virtual machines
  

"The Acronis Backup 12.5 interface is useful to newcomers - very user friendly - while offering a good range of configuration options. The web-based feature would be a great way to keep multiple managers in the loop as they can make their own reports. This looks like a great implementation for small businesses that have been burned by ransomware in the past, and don't want to be hassled with keeping track of workstation backups - just set it and forget it," said Patrick Savary, system engineer of Abacus Computers, Inc.

Innovating for a New Generation of Data Protection

More than 500 Acronis engineers globally are engaged in the innovation and development of Acronis Backup 12.5 Standard and Advanced editions. As a result, Acronis added private and public cloud support for backing up and migrating workloads as well as reliable cloud storage. The release delivers the industry's first and only data protection against ransomware with automated restoration of damaged data. Acronis Backup 12.5 also introduces new technology that enables users to verify the backup integrity before its restoration, improving regulatory compliance and data integrity with blockchain.

• Backup of Amazon EC2 instances, Microsoft Azure VMs and Office 365 mailboxes
• Acronis Active Protection to intelligently detect and block ransomware attacks, such as WannaCry, with instant restoration of any compromised data
• Acronis Notary to prove a file is authentic and unchanged since it was backed up

Partner benefits

Acronis Backup 12.5 is the most reliable and complete solution offering for anyone who supports small, medium, and large business' data protection needs. It allows partners to improve customer service and increase customer retention rate by allowing customers to easily upgrade to the advanced backup functionality without needing to reinstall the system.

There is high demand for the innovative functionality in Acronis Backup 12.5 Standard and Advanced editions, as evidenced by the most popular beta program in Acronis history - three times bigger than the last major launch. Innovative technology, simplified licensing, easy-to-use interface, simple upgrade path from the previous version, and unbeatable pricing make Acronis Backup 12.5 the best backup solution on the market today.

"The flexibility, scale, security and transparent licensing offered with Acronis' next gen backup solution will make it easier for channel partners to sell and deliver data protection-as-a-service," said Holly Garcia, executive director, Advanced Solutions, Ingram Micro. "In today's connected economy every business of any size stands to benefit from a secure and scalable backup solution that can be easily managed by a partner they trust. As a preferred distributor for Acronis, it's great to see a continued investment in the performance and usability of its data protection platform."

Commenting on the new release, Serguei Beloussov, co-founder and CEO of Acronis, said: "Today's reality is more end-point devices, hybrid infrastructure, and an ever-growing cornucopia of threats. Businesses and enterprises globally are adapting to the cloud and trying to make sense of this ever-changing digital landscape. Acronis brings peace of mind by providing innovative data protection technology that is reliable, safe, fast, easy, and complete. Acronis Backup 12.5 is the only answer to all modern-day data protection needs."