Intelligent Tech Channels Issue 05 | Page 15

ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY restore the systems are more limited. Taking a snapshot image of a system includes the hardware configuration, operating system, registry, data, applications, user settings, access rights, user preferences, browsing histories, and so on. Each workload is linked to a specific hardware or virtual machine where it is stored. Typically, in a system there is no separation between the end user workload and the operating system platform and its settings. Restoring a system remotely is therefore not as straight forward as it appears. Things get more complicated when the system at the other end, where the restore is happening or the recovery location, does not match the configuration of the original system where an incident may have happened. This gets further exacerbated if the original system was a physical machine and the restore system is a virtual machine, or the reverse. System restore in real life can include the following possibilities: between different hardware configurations and operating systems, between different types of systems that is physical and virtual, and all combinations in between. Global cloud storage vendor Acronis, provides a method that lets an organisation easily migrate workloads and production systems, whether they are physical or virtual, to other physical or virtual platforms, interchangeably. The primary solution is Acronis Backup 12 that protects data across the following mixed environments: Microsoft Windows and Linux servers, virtual VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V, cloud Microsoft Office 365 mailboxes, Azure virtual machines, Amazon EC2 instances, Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, and Active Directory applications, local and remote Microsoft Windows and Mac workstations and laptops, iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. John Zanni, Acronis Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President Channel and Cloud Strategy, points out it is incorrect to assume that a backup taken from a local system will be restored on an identical system remotely. Not only is it likely that the The Acronis Backup administrative console. hardware and operating configurations will be different, but even the end-user policies on the recovery system may be different. “Our backup is based on image snapshot technology, of everything that is working, every machine, physical and virtual servers. This is possible to a granular level.” This snapshot image, whether of one system or the entire datacentre, is saved locally on-premises, at a scheduled date and time. It can then be saved remotely at other physical locations or in the cloud in a hot standby fashion. End-user control of backup and restore operations are managed through the Acronis Backup administrative console either on-premises or from the cloud, managing physical, virtual, and cloud machines locally or remotely. The console can assign backup plans to one or more machines, review status updates, and receive alerts, all from a single console. Acronis Backup allows data to be replicated from physical to virtual machines and the reverse, physical to physical machines, and virtual to virtual machines, and not necessarily of the same vendor or configuration. The Acronis Backup administrative console is a key part of the Acronis solution and extends the physical machine to the virtual machine and the cloud as well. “Our core competency is through the management of data and to be able to protect the data. As an IT administrator, I really love it since I have one console for physical, virtual, cloud, 15