New features of ABR 12.5 Advanced Server Review and comparison with the previous version.

Acronis Backup and Recovery 12 Advanced Server is a unified, versatile solution for data security, protection against disasters and easy recovery. It is an upgrade to the 11 version and can be installed over it. It is also backward compatible with images and policies created by older versions of Acronis Backup and Recovery.

Salient features of the 12 version of Acronis Backup and Recovery:

- Distributed workstations and servers are managed centrally, making it fast and efficient.

- Integrated deduplication of data files and blocks on both the source and target devices brings down storage costs. For example, any data already stored on the server is simply associated with the client through a link. By storing only a single instance of duplicate data, redundancy is avoided, and bandwidth and storage capacity is used optimally and allows more backups. Other advantages are faster recovery of lesser data and lower consumption of electric supply for backups.

- Acronis Universal Restore can restore images to dissimilar hardware. It adjusts the configuration parameters for an operating system (OS) such as Linux or Windows, for example; these could include conflicting motherboards, chips or storage controllers. The Universal Restore technology also inserts the drivers needed for the OS to boot on any physical hardware available, or even on a virtual machine. Besides instant recover on different hardware, this feature is also useful for hardware-independent cloning and migrations between physical and virtual machines.

- Integrated cloud storage is used as an additional layer of backup and recovery; this saves on hardware costs and offers protection against large-scale natural disasters such as floods or fire, and theft. Windows PC and server backups as well as secondary copies of local backups can be stored on this secure and reliable cloud. A common console for both the Acronis Backup and Recovery 12 and the cloud makes management easy.

- Acronis Disk Director Lite is a disk management feature that takes care of the creation, formatting and deletion of volumes and cloning and converting of disks.

- Acronis Backup and Recovery 12 Advanced Server uses advanced encryption technology to make backup images secure.

- For every backup, a disaster recovery plan is auto-generated, so that the necessary action can be taken even in the absence of an IT administrator.

- Backup plans configured on one machine can be exported via XML files to other machines on the network.

- Email notifications are sent as advance warning for low disk spaces, task failures and other system problems.

- The design of the user interface in is quite different from the earlier 11 version; imaging, backup and recovery can be created, started and viewed on a management console, with both incremental and differential server backup options being offered. The same console can also be used to manage other Acronis tools configured on the same network.

- Strong support is given to agent-less and agent-based backup of virtual machines.

- It offers organization-wide scalability, supporting machines by the thousands.

Feedback from Users:

Organizations find the Acronis Backup and Recovery 12 to be a simple yet efficient solution for server backup, recovery and imaging. In particular, small businesses that do not have a dedicated IT administrations team regard this as the ideal disaster recovery solution. Moreover, it is compatible with all kinds of servers; Linux, Windows, Microsoft (MS) Exchange, MS SQL, MS SharePoint and MS Active Directory, to name a few. It can also be applied to individual desktops and laptops.

Government bodies and corporations that generate massive data appreciate the reduced cost benefits from the Data Deduplication feature. The instant hardware-independent recovery and ease of migration offered by the Universal Restore functionality makes the Acronis Backup and Recovery 12 a must-have tool for any organization that is aiming for accelerated growth.