The Top 11 VM Backup Solutions

Unitrends is a backup, business continuity, and disaster recovery provider that aims to deliver automated, straightforward data protection. Unitrends Unified Backup is their backup and recovery solution for data stored in data centers, the cloud, SaaS applications, and endpoints. The platform also supports VMware virtual environments.

Unitrends Unified Backup Features:

• Support for backing up single files or databases or an entire VM within VMware hypervisors and guest-level environments
• Global deduplication minimizes storage footprint
• Application-level recovery runbook testing for VMware environments
• Instant recovery locally and at disaster recovery site
• Option to replicate data to the Unitrends Cloud for full disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS)
• ML and predictive analytics-powered ransomware detection with automated alerting
• Customizable alert thresholds

Pricing And Plans: Contact Unitrends directly for information on pricing and plans.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Unitrends Unified Backup is a comprehensive, all-in-one backup and recovery solution that enables organizations to protect all of their data against accidental and malicious damage, no matter where it lives. The platform is very straightforward to manage, thanks to its intuitive, modern interface, and it offers lots of automation to further streamline DR workflows. Overall, this is a strong solution for any organization looking for a user-friendly, yet still highly secure, backup solution for their VM environment.

Acronis is a Swiss cybersecurity company that offers a range of cloud backup, recovery, and security tools. The company was founded in 2003 and is used by 500,000 business globally. Acronis’ Cyber Protect Backup And Recovery solution is part of the Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud and allows MSPs to create secure backups of their clients’ data and VMs, then recover them in the event of a cyberattack or other data loss incident.

Acronis Advanced Backup Features:

• Continuous Data Protection (CDP) ensures changes are backed up in real time to reduce any data loss
• Range of storage options – Acronis Hosted Cloud Storage, public clouds (Azure or MSP local storage), NAS, SAN, tapes, disks, etc.,
• Compliance and data protection reporting ensures that all workloads and files are accounted for – this also helps with auditing
• Backups can be moved to other VMs to reduce load on client’s machines

Pricing And Plans: Contact Acronis directly for information on pricing and plans.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Acronis’ solution is highly configurable, allowing you to specify granular policies for each of your clients’ data. The solution is ergonomic and easy to use, which ensures that it does not impact productivity and efficiency across management, configuration, and disaster recovery procedures. We would recommend Acronis Advanced Backup for medium to larger MSPs that need a solution that offers lots of flexibility and customization.

Hornetsecurity VM Backup is brought to you by Hornetsecurity – a leading provider of security and compliance SaaS solutions. Hornetsecurity VM Backup is designed to be easy to set up and use, allowing you to replicate and restore your VMware and Hyper-V infrastructure without hassle. The solution enforces a high level of security on your data with immutable storage and ransomware protection.

Hornetsecurity VM Backup Features:

• WAN-optimized replication continually replicates data to a remote site to improve recovery time objective (RTO)
• Configure backup frequency up to every 5 mins to provide near continuous protection
• Reduce backup window through concurrent VM backups
• Granular backup policy configuration – specific policies can be applied to individual machines or across the board
• AES-256 encryption to secure data

Pricing And Plans: Hornetsecurity offers subscription and perpetual licenses, with discounts for 2- and 3-year plans. For complete pricing and subscription plans, contact Hornetsecurity directly.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Hornetsecurity has developed a simple, but effective VM backup solution. Users can rest assured that their data and assets are protected, without the need for complex configuration or a lengthy management processes. The solution makes management simple with an efficient dashboard to give you insights into your stored data and network activities. We would recommend Hornetsecurity VM Backup to medium sized organizations and MSPs who need a functional solution that prioritizes security and protection when storing your data.

Cohesity is a San Jose, CA-based cyber protection company. They have developed several solutions to store and protect your data – including ransomware protection and cyber threat analysis. Cohesity VMware Backup And Recovery provides effective and quick disaster recovery for your VMware data, allowing you to streamline storage policies.

Cohesity VMware Backup And Recovery Features:

• Rapid data recovery in the aftermath of a disaster event
• Effective integration with public and VMware cloud
• Immutable snapshots, DataLock, and multifactor authentication protect backups against malware and tampering
• Comprehensive coverage – vSphere, VMC, VCF, VCD, and vSAN are all protected
• Available as-a-service, or self-managed
• Journal-based backups allow point-in-time data recovery to the cloud or another site
• Distributed architecture offers protection against two-node and two-disk failures

Pricing And Plans: For information on pricing and plans, contact Cohesity directly.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Cohesity is a robust and technically competent data protection solution. The solution gives you an extensive level of control and configurability from a single pane of glass interface. Users praise Cohesity as a “no nonsense” solution that meets all expectations. We would recommend Cohesity VMware Backup And Recovery for organizations of all sizes that want a robust solution that is easy to manage and operate.

Commvault is a cloud data protection company based in New Jersey. In addition to their data protection products, Commvault also provides data loss and recovery, storage optimization, and data governance solutions. Commvault’s Complete Data Protection solution is comprised of two tools: Backup & Recovery, and Disaster Recovery. Together, these products provide a powerful data protection solution that remains intuitive and easy-to-use.

Commvault Complete Data Protection Features:

• Comprehensive coverage – backs up files, apps, databases, containers, VMs, and cloud data
• VM storage and snapshot replication with flexible RPO/RTO
• Automated compliance reporting
• Granular recovery of data and applications, with automatic VM recovery
• Backed up data is validated to ensure recovery is seamless
• Policy-driven automation allows you to optimize workflows

Pricing And Plans: For information on pricing and plans, contact Commvault directly.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Commvault is a simple to use product that delivers a good deal of functionality. The centralized management dashboard allows admin to restore and manage data remotely, eliminating the need for them to travel to remote locations when a disaster event occurs. As such, we would recommend Commvault for large organizations that operate in multiple locations or have remote/hybrid IT and security teams.

Based in Santa Clara, CA, Druva is a leading provider of data resiliency solutions, powered by their SaaS platform. The Druva Data Resiliency Platform enables you to backup and restore your VMware vSphere workloads with ease. This cloud-native platform reduces the dependency on infrastructure, thereby simplifying the multi-cloud protection of VMs.

Druva Data Resiliency Platform Features:

• Immutable backups and data isolation to secure stored data
• Uses AES-256 encryption for data in transit and at rest
• Transparent and dynamic scaling of storage on-demand
• One-click VM failover orchestration
• Tools to test and validate data recovery contingency plans
• Able to backup data from SaaS apps, public cloud services, data centres, and edge technology

Pricing And Plans: For information on pricing and plans, contact Druva directly.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Druva Data Resiliency Platform is a comprehensive data storage solution that backs up a range of data types. The Druva support team ensures you can set up the solution effectively, and that it is configured to meet your needs. For the end user, it is hard to notice that Druva is at work until you need to recover and restore data. We would recommend Druva Data Resiliency Cloud for small to medium-sized organizations that need a comprehensive solution that requires little management, without the need for advanced configuration and customization.

IBM is a multi-national IT company that offers a range of products across cybersecurity, automation, communication, and network management. Storage Protect Plus is IBM’s backup and recovery solution that can streamline the recovery process through effective scaling and optimization.

IBM Storage Protect Plus Features:

• Flexibility to store data on-premises or with public cloud services
• User interface allows backup and recovery events to be carried out on demand, or automated
• Blueprints from IBM Storage Protect Plus detail the best practices and procedures for all environment types
• Highly scalable solution – ability to manage billions of objects per server
• Optimized data protection for stored information

Pricing And Plans: Monthly prices start at $64.80 for 10 managed VMs, or per TB. Perpetual licenses start at $2,160 per 10 managed VMs or per TB of data. Contact IBM directly for more information on pricing and what’s included in each plan.

Expert Insights’ Comments: IBM Storage Protect Plus is a robust and versatile solution. It provides a great deal of functionality and granular control over what data is stored, and how it is managed. IBM ensures your data is secure and provides warning notifications regarding the status and health of your stored data. We would recommend IBM Storage Protect Plus for organizations of all sizes, particularly those who already use IBM’s product suite.

N-able is a multi-national technology company that has developed a series of products to monitor, manage, and secure their customers’ systems, data, and networks. The company offers EDR, threat hunting, and backup and recovery solutions, as well as DNS filtering and identity protection products. N-able Cove Data Protection is the company’s integrated cloud backup, archiving, and disaster recovery solution.

N-able Cove Data Protection Features:

• TrueDelta deduplication tool optimizes backup workloads
• Fast file, folder, and whole system recovery with bare-metal restore
• Verify backup recoverability with automated scheduled testing
• AES-256 encryption protects files when in transit and at rest
• WAN optimization minimizes bandwidth usage
• Store data for up to seven years

Pricing And Plans: For information on pricing and plans, contact N-able directly.

Expert Insights’ Comments: N-able Cove Data Protection is a strong data storage solution that has a real focus on ensuring processes are optimized. Data is deduplicated and bandwidth usage is optimized, thereby ensuring that the backup process is as light touch as possible. We would recommend Cove Data Protection for enterprise organizations that have busy network environments and would benefit from optimization across the board.

Nakivo is based in Nevada and is a dedicated VM backup and disaster recovery solution for virtual, physical, cloud, and SaaS environments. Backup And Replication is Nakivo’s agentless VMware backup solution. The solution is used by 25,000 customers across 177 countries.

Nakivo Backup And Replication Features:

• Granular recovery – recover individual files (or entire VM) to the original or new locations
• VMware can be booted directly from backups to reduce downtime
• LAN-free data transfer improves backup speeds and frees up bandwidth
• Customizable administration – able to precisely define frequency and type of backup as needed

Pricing And Plans: Perpetual licenses per CPU socket cost between $229 and $659 per year. Nakivo offers five pricing plans: Pro Essentials, Enterprise Essentials, Pro, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. Nakivo also offers subscription licenses, which start at $2.50 per workload/month. For more information of what is included in each plan, contact Nakivo directly.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Nakivo Backup And Replication is a reliable and efficient VMware backup solution. Failover tasks can be automated, or performed on demand, giving you complete control. This level of control is seen across the whole platform – policies can be finely configured to facilitate your organization’s backup and recovery plan. We would recommend Nakivo Backup And Replication for small- to medium-sized organizations that need a reliable solution that can be set up and managed without hassle.

Veeam is a backup and data management platform for cloud, virtual, and physical environments that is based in Columbus, OH. Veeam Backup And Replication empowers you to securely store a broad range of data types, safeguarding your organization against data loss and disaster events.

Veeam VMWare Backup & Replication Features:

• Software solution that is hardware and storage type agnostic
• Agentless management streamlines the backup and recovery process
• Comprehensive monitoring and analytics of VMware backups gives you greater visibility
• Ransomware-proof backups ensure your VMware backups are not corrupted

Pricing And Plans: Veeam offers three pricing plans: Foundation, Advanced, and Premium. You are able to download a free trial for each solution. For specific pricing information, contact Veeam directly.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Veeam’s VMWare Backup & Replication solution integrates effectively and can scale to meet the needs and demands of your organization. Thanks to Veeam’s policy configuration and automation features, you can rely on the solution to work away in the background, knowing that your data is being reliably backed up. We would recommend Veeam’s VMWare Backup & Replication for small to medium organizations that need an efficient solution that can be managed intuitively.

Based in Nevada, Vembu Technologies provides secure backup solutions for virtual, physical, cloud, and SaaS solutions. The BDRSuite for VMWare ensures fast backup and recovery of VMWare virtual machines, which conforms to the 3-2-1 backup rule and allows you to resume business operations within as little as five mins.

Vembu BDRSuite for VMWare Features:

• Centralized console gives you powerful management, monitoring, and reporting tools
• Range of storage locations including local disk, NAS, SAN, Tape, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
• Agentless VM replication provides effective VM failover
• Incremental backup to ensure all data is covered
• App-aware backup for Microsoft and Oracle applications

Pricing And Plans: Vembu offers a free plan for up to 10VMs, with their Standard plan costing $36/VM/year, and the Enterprise plan being $60/VM/year. Vembu also offers a 50% discount for small businesses with up to 10 CPU-Sockets or 100VMs.

Expert Insights’ Comments: Vembu’s simple solution gives you the ability to create consistent backups with a high degree of accuracy. The platform will instantly boot VMs when a network event occurs – this ensures that any network downtime is minimal. The solution also allows you to store data in a range of ways – from local disk, to NAS, SAN, Tape, AWS, and others. Due to their flexible pricing plans and effective coverage, we would recommend Vembu BDRSuite for VMWare for smaller organizations that are looking to backup relatively few VMs.