Acronis Acquires Competitor BackupAgent

Acronis International GmbH announces the acquisition of BackupAgent BV in cloud backup.

One of the elements of Acronis’s cloud strategy is to enable MSPs, hosting companies and telecom operators to deliver complete data protection services to their customers, storing data in providers’ or customers’ datacenters, or in a public cloud.

BackupAgent, founded in 2005 and once named by Deloitte as one of the fastest growing technology companies, brings on board years of cloud backup expertise, an existing network of hundreds of active partners and over 50 thousand customers across the world.

Japanese cloud provider Tsukaeru.net, has been a BackupAgent partner since 2010 with thousands of users of cloud backup. CEO of Tsukaeru.net Jason Frisch comments: “I am happy to hear that BackupAgent and Acronis are joining forces. We’re excited to see what happens next, with the additional support, resources and technologies that Acronis can provide“.

Service providers will also benefit from the partnership between Acronis and Parallels, Inc., leveraging the integration of BackupAgent solutions with Parallels Automation, empowering Parallels-enabled service providers to deploy a cloud backup offering to their customers at a low cost of entry.

“According to Parallels SMB cloud Insights research, backup and recovery is one of the top three most demanded services“, said Birger Steen, CEO, Parallels, “With this acquisition, service providers using Parallels Automation for cloud service delivery will now have the most complete and reliable backup solution to offer their customers.”

Over time, BackupAgent’s solution will be powered by Acronis AnyData Engine technology, allowing service providers to deliver new generation data protection technologies via a cloud backup solutions to their customers:

• File-level and full-system backup for desktops and servers: for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms;
• Backup of physical and virtual servers: supporting hypervisors like Hyper-V, vSphere, Xenserver, RHEV/KVM, Oracle VM;
• Context-aware backup for business applications: Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory, SQL Server;
• Support of multiple-destination for storage: on-premises, in service provider cloud, in Acronis Cloud, in public cloud, as well as any mix of those destinations based on customer preference and sensitivity of data;
• Variety of backup and storage policies: for data to ensure the required level of protection and compliance with local government requirements;
• Ability to do DR in the cloud: avoiding any downtime.

Service providers are able to deploy the cloud backup solution to their datacenters, to customer datacenters, or use Acronis datacenters and start selling the service with zero initial cost. This enables any MSP, hosting company or telecom operator to become a cloud backup provider.

“With over 15 years of experience helping service provider businesses in SWsoft and Parallels, I clearly understand the customer need and the service provider revenue opportunity with a cloud data protection solution“, said Serguei Beloussov, CEO and co-founder, Acronis. “Using Acronis technology, BackupAgent cloud expertise and existing channel, plus our deep technology and business ties with Parallels, we are able to deliver the most complete and the most service provider-friendly solution on the market.“

With this acquisition, existing Acronis and BackupAgent partners will receive the most complete data protection solution to offer to their customers, and the existing 50,000 customers of BackupAgent will enjoy a complete, flexible and user-friendly cloud backup service.

Roland Sars and Robbert van Geldrop, founders, BackupAgent, comment: “We are excited to join forces with Acronis; this acquisition fits perfectly within our expansion plans. Becoming part of Acronis supports BackupAgent’s vision to become the world’s leading cloud backup player. This acquisition will bring only good to our service providers, as they become part of a worldwide ecosystem of thousands of channel partners. We are extremely proud of the complete BackupAgent team.“

According to a recent IDC study, 65% of SMB companies backup their data to cloud, avoiding necessity to purchase expensive backup systems and store the data on-site. This need creates an opportunity for service providers to add additional revenue stream offering cloud backup service. Acronis powered Backup-as-a-Service enables service providers, hosting providers and telecoms to build cloud backup offering with negligible entry costs. With the acquisition of BackupAgent, Acronis enables service providers to offer a complete cloud backup solution to customers of any size.

Acronis has more than 50 backup and recovery technologies developed to date. Over 4.5 million consumers, SMBs and service providers employ its products to protect their data.