

Customers who had a wide range of needs-such as direct backup support for Microsoft Exchange, MicrosoftSQL Server, or bare-metal restore capabilities for virtual servers-were usually left scratching their heads until they received assistance from a sales rep. In previous versions, calculating your license fee could be something of a nightmare as you had to first figure out all of the potential options and their pricing. Still, overall, Acronis Backup is a great product, and only comes in slightly behind Editors' Choice winner Zetta Data Protection due to its lack of popular backup targets. A free 30-day trial is available, and both Linux and Windows systems are supported, although Mac OS X users are, surprisingly, left out in the cold. Acronis has also rolled out a cloud storage service that starts at $250 per year for 250 GB and scales up as needed.

Departing from the fat client architecture of the past, this new cloud-based product opens doors that were not previously available to customers, including the potential for remote management. While the company has long been a leader in on-site backup solutions, Acronis Backup 12.5 also establishes it as a leader business cloud backup, too. Acronis has been in the data backup business for many years, and its latest iteration, Acronis Backup 12.5 (which begins at $59.67 per year) amply demonstrates the company's maturity and expertise.
