These are not your personal backup solutions
There is a big difference between backup software for your personal or family’s use and what a business will require. Even if you are a one-person company and you have your laptop, desktop, and possibly a file storage server or NAS device, you will want to look into the different options that can protect you from ransomware, crypto-locker, and other malicious malware attacks that can put small and medium companies out of business and cripple enterprise size companies. A lot of new companies believe they can get away with using an iCloud, Google Cloud, or Dropbox-type solution for “backing up” your files. These companies will state that you should also keep a backup of your data which shows just how much they believe in their systems to provide a 100% backup solution.
The personal type backup solutions are just not built for long-term business storage solutions with most just retaining 30 days worth of data after deletion and will freely sync your files that overwrite what they have stored so in case of a malicious dormant attack that waits longer than 30 days, you will continue to be breached. We will cover the top 5 business-orientated software options below with typical use cases and what they have been a great fit for with our customers here at Secure Packet whether the client uses our DR services or our IT Consulting services.
1 – Veeam Veeam Software – Modern Data Protection
Veeam is a great solution that Secure Packet sells while also using for internal needs. Veeam provides a free tier if you have less than 10 endpoints to backup. Veeam’s offerings have grown over the years to cover Cloud-based services such as Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, and AWS Cloud services. Veeam also covers the normal needs you would think of like Windows desktops, Windows servers, Linux desktops and servers, hypervisors like Hyper-V and VMware ESXi, and a long list of NAS and SAN devices. All size companies from SMBs to enterprises can use Veeam due to the ease of use with their Windows-based interface, but you can still get very technical if you choose to. For Secure Packet’s smaller companies, we provide a license to cover the client’s needs and can provide a remote backup location that will work in tangent with the customer’s local backup strategy. It makes your backup and disaster recovery plan as simple as it can be.
2 – Zerto Zerto | Cloud Data Management and Protection
Zerto’s offering can rival Veeam’s offering and has been a coin flip in the past depending on the customer’s needs. Zerto doesn’t provide a free tier for licenses, however, they do offer free labs and a free trial to test out their software. Zerto covers much of the same as Veeam with a focus that is more towards newer services such as Microsoft M365, Salesforce, MS Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, VMware, along with hyper-visors and more. Secure Packet’s engineers have experience with Zerto and believe it is a better fit for larger customers with more than a handful of servers. Zerto offers three categories of licenses which are virtual machines, Kubernetes, and SaaS. You can see they do not have a focus on desktops or laptops as Veeam has. As a side note, Zerto is now owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise or HPE.
3 – Acronis Cyber Backup Backup and Recovery Software
Acronis has been recommended by a few Secure Packet engineers that have deployed it. Acronis is another flexible option like Veeam. You are able to select the type of storage like local disks, SAN, NAS, or even a cloud storage option. Anti-malware scanning is a key feature that others are either now rolling out or don’t have currently which helps Acronis standout in the Backup Solutions top 5. Acronis also supports tape backup solutions for those larger data sets while also helping reduce the overall storage costs. If you are requiring long-term storage due to compliance reasons, having tape-based backups can be a critical need for overall regulations and budget needs.
4 – Barracuda Intronis Backup Intronis Backup
Barracuda is a company that has been around for quite a long time with their best know product of email scanning and security. Their backup solution is mostly for managed service providers, however, we have been provided a few case studies where medium size businesses will use the features to separate out their internal departments into “clients” which help separate out the different needs of each department. Other software can do this like Veeam, however, Barracuda’s pricing is SMB friendly with fixed pricing per site so there is no fluctuation of pricing as your site or customer’s site grows. Since this offering is focused on Managed Service Providers (MSP), there are key integrations with the top RMMs and PSAs to help provide a full management solution.
5 – Built-in Option
This option is broad and would need to be evaluated depending on what your environment consists of and how do you store your data. One example is using Synology’s NAS products and this is where you can use their built-in Backup solution that also can be used for offsite backups with ease. Depending on what your environment has, there might be a built-in free or paid add-on solution for a backup that could cover your needs. It is always worth looking at solutions that are purpose-built for your environment. Since no two IT environments are ever the same, it is worthwhile to review all the common options you have since you never know when one will work out great for your team while the same one just isn’t a great fit for another team. This situation with using built-in tools is usually a better fit for companies that are smaller in size, have some tech abilities internally, and have a very limited budget as there are usually some tradeoffs compared to the Backup software solution industry leaders.
What is the correct choice for your company?
It is very difficult to suggest which option will work best for you since each and every IT environment is set up differently and is facing unique challenges. There is no one size fits all solution when it comes to overcoming IT hurdles. Secure Packet can help determine what is the right choice for your company with a quick strategy call. We do not require any type of commitment or payment for this quick call. We will discuss what problems, budget, regulations, compliances, risks, etc you and your company are facing to come up with a solution that this perfect for you.
If you need some help to ensure that your backup plans are exceeding your needs, reach out to Secure Packet today. Backups and Disaster Recovery are key consulting areas for Secure Packet. We are able to help the smaller 1-5 employee businesses all the way up to the 1,000+ employee enterprises to ensure all restore point objectives and restore time objectives will be met if you ever have to utilize your backups. Contact Secure Packet today!
Looking to learn more? Read about the differences between RPO and RTO when it comes to your backups or read about the 3-2-1 Backup rule here.