The adoption of hybrid and multicloud environments, coupled with the widespread use of SaaS applications, is on the rise among businesses. This surge in technological integration also exposes them to the ever-present risk of ransomware attacks. Therefore, it is critical for I&O leaders to maintain a continuous assessment of their backup and recovery capabilities. These solutions enable organizations to recover data quickly following incidents such as accidental data loss, malicious attacks, or environmental disasters.
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions categorizes leading service providers in this field as niche players, visionaries, leaders, and challengers. Below is the roster of companies that have earned a spot in this year’s magic quadrant.
1. Acronis
Acronis is classified as a Niche Player in the Magic Quadrant, offering a comprehensive backup portfolio that includes both on-premises (Acronis Cyber Protect) and cloud-hosted (Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud) solutions. These solutions integrate backup, security, and endpoint management for a variety of environments, including physical servers, virtual machines, SaaS workloads, and public cloud deployments. Acronis distributes its products through direct sales and a vast network of service providers leveraging its global network of data centers.
It also offers a unified, agent-based solution that combines security, backup, disaster recovery, and IT management for various endpoints, workstations, application servers, and major public cloud platforms like Azure and AWS, with extensive hypervisor support and global language coverage.
2. Arcserve
Arcserve is classified as a Challenger in the Magic Quadrant. It offers a diverse portfolio of backup solutions, including Arcserve UDP, Arcserve Backup, Arcserve UDP Appliances, Arcserve Cloud Direct, Arcserve UDP Cloud Hybrid Secured by Sophos, Arcserve OneXafe storage appliances and Arcserve SaaS Backup. Its operations are spread across different regions and primarily serve midmarket clients.
The combination of Arcserve Backup and Arcserve UDP enables robust support for enterprise workloads in both data centers and the public cloud. Arcserve UDP also allows for direct-to-cloud object storage backups with deduplication, improving data management efficiency.
3. Cohesity
Cohesity stands as a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. The company’s operations extend across North America, Western Europe, and Asia/Pacific, with a clientele primarily situated in the upper midmarket and enterprise segments.
Cohesity’s SaaS-based control plane, known as Cohesity Helios, offers a centralized and user-friendly administrative interface for all its backup products. Moreover, Cohesity’s services, including DataProtect delivered as a service and FortKnox, grant customers the flexibility to select from various cloud storage locations, including options in AWS and Azure. The company has also actively collaborated with multiple security vendors across different disciplines to enhance its offerings.
4. Commvault
Commvault is positioned as a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its portfolio of backup and recovery services includes Commvault Backup & Recovery, Commvault Disaster Recovery, Commvault HyperScale X, Metallic SaaS offerings, and Metallic ThreatWise. The company’s operations span various regions, primarily catering to large enterprises.
Commvault Metallic provides extensive protection for SaaS applications, multicloud environments, on-premises systems, and endpoints. This coverage is further enhanced with the inclusion of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) protection, the option to utilize personal OCI object storage, and the introduction of new features like Metallic File and Object Archive, along with Metallic ThreatWise.
5. Dell Technologies
Dell Technologies is recognized as a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its backup and recovery software offerings encompass PowerProtect Data Manager, PowerProtect Cyber Recovery, CyberSense, Dell NetWorker, Dell Avamar, Dell APEX Backup Services, as well as PowerProtect DP series and PowerProtect DD series appliances. The company’s operations have a wide geographical reach, catering to large enterprises and establishing a presence in the midmarket.
The PowerProtect Cyber Recovery now offers deployment options for on-premises setups as well as integration with major cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and Google.
6. Druva
Druva is positioned as a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant. Its Data Resiliency Cloud platform is a Backup as a Service (BaaS) solution that utilizes AWS infrastructure for backup operations. The platform encompasses various products, facilitating on-premises and cloud VM backup and disaster recovery (DR), AWS cloud-native and Kubernetes backup and DR, as well as SaaS application and endpoint backup. Druva’s operations have a broad geographic reach, with a predominant customer base in North America. Its clients are typically in the midmarket and enterprise segments.
7. HYCU
HYCU is identified as a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant. Its platform, HYCU Protégé, is a hybrid and multicloud Backup as a Service (BaaS) solution, covering Azure, AWS, and Google and supports IaaS, DBaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and on-premises workloads. HYCU’s operations have a broad geographic presence, with a majority of its clientele based in North America. Its customers typically fall within the upper midmarket segment.
8. IBM
IBM is recognized as a Visionary in this Magic Quadrant. Its core backup portfolio includes offerings like IBM Storage Protect, IBM Storage Protect Plus, IBM Storage Protect Snapshot, IBM Storage Copy Data Management, and IBM Storage Protect for Cloud. IBM operates globally and primarily serves large enterprises.
IBM has recently unveiled a strategic shift in its backup and recovery strategy by integrating it with its main storage product line, along with several complementary OEM products. The Storage Defender now delivers a unified cyber protection solution managed using a common control plane. Additionally, IBM Storage Protect for Cloud provides end-users with self-service restoration options for Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Teams, OneDrive, and Groups.
9. Microsoft
Microsoft is a new entrant in the Magic Quadrant and is categorized as a Niche Player. It offers a diverse backup and recovery portfolio. This includes Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery (ASR), Microsoft Azure Backup Server (MABS), System Center Data Protection (DPM), and Microsoft Azure Recovery Services (MARS) agent. Microsoft operates across various geographical regions, catering to clients of all sizes.
Over the past year, Microsoft has made significant enhancements to Azure Backup, introducing features such as Azure Backup Instant Restore, Cross Zonal Restore of Azure VMs, Azure Vault-Archive, smart tiering, backup cost analysis, immutable vaults, multiuser authentication, and improved encryption.
10. OpenText
OpenText is categorized as a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant. They offer an enterprise backup product portfolio, including Data Protector for on-premises workloads and Data Protector for Cloud Workloads for cloud-based services. OpenText operates globally, with a focus on midmarket clients.
OpenText has bolstered Data Protector with notable improvements, including enhanced support for SAP HANA, the implementation of role-based access control (RBAC), advanced integration with MongoDB, and upgraded deduplication capabilities. Additionally, Data Protector for Cloud Workloads now includes added support for virtual machines in Azure Cloud, Azure Stack HCI, Google Cloud, and Virtuozzo, along with improved export capabilities and API integrations for Microsoft 365.
11. Rubrik
Rubrik is a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its backup product portfolio includes Rubrik Security Cloud, offering various backup solutions, data security, and advanced recovery features. The company’s operations are geographically diverse, primarily serving large enterprises. Rubrik introduced several new and enhanced capabilities. These include a machine learning model for detecting ransomware, support for ransomware detection in Nutanix and Microsoft hypervisors, improved recovery for VMware environments, a Data Security Command Center for assessing overall security posture, and threat containment features to isolate malware in backups.
One of Rubrik’s notable strengths lies in its innovative product strategy, pricing, branding, and bundling.
12. Unitrends
Unitrends, a subsidiary of Kaseya, is categorized as a Niche Player in this Magic Quadrant. Its backup portfolio includes Unitrends Backup software, Recovery Series Backup Appliance, and Spanning Backup for SaaS application backup. The company operates across diverse geographical regions, primarily serving the midmarket segment.
Unitrends’ offers Backup as a Service (BaaS) for Microsoft Azure VM backup and disaster recovery. Unitrends UniView provides unified administrative access to every aspect of the solution and includes management of appliances, endpoint backup, and SaaS applications. Furthermore, Unitrends is broadening its range of software and appliance options by adding integrated cloud disaster recovery services.
13. Veeam
Veeam is placed as a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its backup portfolio comprises the Veeam Data Platform, which encompasses Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam ONE, and Veeam Recovery Orchestrator.
Operating across diverse geographical regions, Veeam primarily serves clients in the enterprise, midmarket, and SMB segments. The Veeam Data Platform is accessible across all major public cloud providers, providing a consistent recovery experience for commonly used workloads in hybrid, multicloud, and cross-cloud environments.
Veeam’s offerings are made available through a widespread global network of authorized partners, which includes resellers, alliances, implementation partners, and Managed Service Providers (MSPs).
14. Veritas
Veritas is recognized as a Leader in this Magic Quadrant. Its backup product lineup includes NetBackup, NetBackup Appliances, and Backup Exec. Additionally, it offers Veritas Alta cloud services, encompassing Alta View, Alta BaaS, Alta Data Protection, Alta Recovery Vault, and Alta SaaS Protection.
Veritas conducts operations across diverse geographic regions, predominantly serving large enterprises, with a presence also in the midmarket segment. It has recently expanded its support for SaaS applications, now including Salesforce and Google Workspace backup. Notably, NetBackup has been enhanced with support for 13 new database PaaS workloads, isolated recovery capabilities on Flex Scale appliances, malware scanning for NAS, and GCP immutability.
I&O leaders overseeing backup strategies should focus on investing in comprehensive solutions that address the evolving landscape of data protection, prioritize ransomware defense and rapid recovery, optimize resilience, and align their architecture with operational needs. Evaluating licensing models and pricing structures, along with leveraging the cloud for tiering and recovery, are essential considerations. Additionally, selecting vendors that provide value beyond recovery, enhancing data security and compliance, should be a strategic priority in modern backup strategies.
Source: Gartner
Featured image credit: Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik
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