Acronis aims to level playing field with local cloud backup move

Acronis Backup as a Service, a cloud backup and recovery solution designed to help service providers compete with global cloud companies, is now available in Australia and New Zealand.

According to Acronis, the offering enables Value Added Resellers and Service Providers to expand their data protection offerings, localise an automated backup service, grow recurring revenue and kill churn.

"Local service providers need a differentiator to effectively compete with global cloud companies," says Robert Amatruda, research director data protection and recovery at IDC.

"Acronis Backup as a Service allows service providers to deliver a simple, complete and cost-effective backup service that can be customised to meet their local customer requirements."

In a recent survey, TechTarget found that 55 percent of companies expect to increase cloud spending in 2014.

Acronis Backup as a Service empowers service providers to reach that market by requiring no upfront commitments and by operating on a pay-as-you-go business model.

The service can also be white-labeled or co-branded into their existing SaaS offerings for easy localisation. The flexible service permits end users to designate various departments and/or roles involved with installing, activating, monitoring and backing up of data to the cloud and local storage destinations.

Service providers also have the option to leverage Acronis Cloud Storage or their own Cloud storage capacity.

“With Acronis Backup as a Service, we’re chopping down the risks and traditional limitations of cloud backup by delivering a turnkey SaaS business model powered by Acronis’ mature and proven backup and recovery technology,” adds Rene Oldenbeuving, general manager, cloud business, Acronis.

“Our usage-based service eliminates upfront investments, so costs only increase when revenue increases, giving service providers a competitive solution that puts them on equal footing with the biggest cloud businesses.

"Add in our proven image technology and you have one of the only file-based recovery and bare metal recovery offerings in single cloud solution.”