Axcient announced Direct to Cloud, which expands Axcient’s offering to laptops and desktops, and enables organizations to replicate physical and virtual servers to the cloud without the need for a local appliance.
Direct to Cloud enables customers to take full system snapshots of their laptops, workstations and servers, and store them in the cloud.
The platform is available as a software download. Once installed, it establishes a secure encrypted connection to the Axcient Business Recovery Cloud.
“There’s a need for an appliance-less deployment across a number of different market segments,” Daniel Kuperman, director of product marketing at Axcient, told eWEEK. “Our MSP partners asked for a cost-effective way to deploy the Axcient solution to small businesses that cannot afford a local backup appliance. The appliance-less option for SMBs is a great way to get them to upgrade their data protection strategy without incurring the costs for a local physical appliance.”
Kuperman noted that companies with remote workers or branch offices also need an appliance-less option.
“Larger companies with satellite or distributed offices can now deploy Axcient to protect all their locations in a more cost-effective way than having to install appliances at each remote location,” he explained.
When the primary system is unavailable, customers can instantly launch a virtual replica in the Axcient Business Recovery Cloud to enable seamless business continuity.
When ready, customers can then migrate images to new hardware or a virtual environment, and replication to the cloud through Direct to Cloud can happen even if the device is not connected to a local area network (LAN).
Users can connect to the Internet anywhere with a WiFi connection, and Direct to Cloud will track offline changes and then securely resume replication.
Axcient offers three deployment options — physical, virtual or directly to the cloud. The platform includes server image replication (support for physical and virtual servers), laptop image replication (full image backup for Windows- based laptops) and instant failover (cloud failover of servers and laptops).
“The data protection space has been heavily influenced by recent trends in mobile computing and technologies that allow employees to work remotely and stay productive,” Kuperman said. “With companies encouraging employees to take their laptops home, to travel and work from anywhere, there is a need to ensure these endpoint devices are properly protected. The problem is that once a computing device leaves the company premises, the IT department has little control over it.”
The platform uses the same web-based interface that customers use to manage server protection with Axcient, allowing a single interface for protection and recovery of all devices across an entire enterprise, and offers unlimited storage, compute and bandwidth.
“We need to rethink the importance of backup versus recovery. If you want to keep the lights on and the business going without a hitch when disaster strikes on a random Tuesday–you’ve got to think about recovery and continuity and leave traditional backup behind,” Justin Moore, CEO of Axcient, told eWEEK. “Backup doesn’t help you work faster, better or without incident. Recovery does.”