Acronis has introduced a new licensing model for its Cyber Protect Cloud solution that provides no-cost access to an extensive menu of security and data protection features.
In conjunction with the announcement, the company has also rolled the capabilities of its Cyber Backup Cloud, Cyber Disaster Recovery Cloud, Cyber Files Cloud, and Cyber Notary Cloud solutions into Cyber Protect Cloud and phased the four older systems out as stand-alone offerings. Acronis revealed its intention to cease development of Cyber Backup last fall.
Under the new pricing scheme, Cyber Protect Cloud users pay only for backup and file sync and share storage capacity, as well as e-signing and file notarization functionality, on a pay as you go basis. Vulnerability assessment, behavior-based endpoint protection, centralized management, and backup support for files, device images, applications, network shares, and more are available free of charge.
Users can also purchase “advanced protection packs” to extend Cyber Protect Cloud’s feature set. The Advanced Backup pack, for example, adds continuous backup updating while the Advanced Disaster Recovery pack spins up cloud-based recovery environments in real time. The Advanced Security pack supplement’s the base solution’s defensive technologies and the Advanced Management pack adds features like integrated patch management for over 200 third-party applications.
Users of many Acronis legacy products can also receive more functionality without paying more now by switching to Cyber Protect Cloud. Making that change will enable Acronis Cyber Backup Standard subscribers, for example, to add security features to the backup capabilities they already have without a price increase.
Introduced last June, Cyber Protect Cloud is part of the larger Cyber Protect platform that Acronis unveiled in 2019 and officially launched last May in conjunction with a strategic move to reinvent itself as a provider of integrated end-to-end data security and availability services.
“Using separate tools to address different IT requirements and counter cyberthreats is a complicated, inefficient, and costly way for service providers to operate,” said Serguei Beloussov, founder and CEO of Acronis, in a press statement. “By unifying data protection, cybersecurity, and protection management in one, any service provider can eliminate the complexity and management headaches while improving security. With this new licensing model for Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, our partners can deliver superior cyber protection services to their clients at little to no upfront cost.”
Consolidating needed capabilities within a single platform allows MSPs to lower their data protection and security costs by up to 50%, according to Acronis.
In conjunction with the licensing change, earlier editions of Cyber Protect will be discontinued after June in favor of the new arrangement in which partners flexibly layer protection packs on top of the foundation provided by Cyber Protect Cloud.
Acronis published research earlier this week that illustrates the degree to which businesses need integrated, sophisticated security and data protection. For example, a third of the end users in that study don’t update their devices within a week of learning that a patch is available, and though 90% of users perform backups, 73% have irretrievably lost data at least once. The same survey states that 80% of companies now run as many as 10 security and backup solutions.
Like Acronis, other vendors believe security and backup are inseparably linked functions that should be tightly integrated. Datto, for instance, outlined its “cyber resilience” strategy at an online event earlier this month. OpenText has been using the same term to describe its aspirations since purchasing data availability vendor Carbonite and security vendor Webroot in 2019.
