2021 CRN Cloud 100: 14 Data Protection Vendors to Consider

IT news and analysis outlet CRN recently released its 2021 Cloud 100, a ranking of prominent cloud computing vendors that solution providers should be aware of. The CRN Cloud 100 list is made up of established and emerging cloud technology vendors such as monitoring and management providers. The list is broken down into five distinct product categories that include cloud infrastructure, monitoring and management, security, software, and storage. Though the Cloud 100 is aimed at highlighting software vendors for the purposes of solution provider partnering,

Solutions Review is most interested in highlighting the vendors that offer unique products and platforms for enterprise organizations. As such, we’ve read through the 2021 CRN Cloud 100 report, available here, to analyze the trending data protection vendors we think matter most. For an even deeper breakdown of cloud-based data protection vendors, software, tools, and platforms, consult our popular Buyer’s Guide.

Acronis

Acronis provides backup, disaster recovery, and secure access solutions. The vendor also offers further data protection across any environment, including physical, virtual, cloud, and mobile. The provider’s flagship product, Acronis True Image, delivers backup, storage, and restoration capabilities. Acronis’ Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solutions address IT requirements for backup, disaster recovery, and archiving. Additionally, the vendor offers 24–hour support to customers worldwide. In early 2020, Acronis also released its cyber protection offering, Acronis Cyber Protect, and acquired CyberLynx for an undisclosed amount. 

Arcserve

Arcserve offers several different backup products, including Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP), Arcserve Replication and High Availability, Arcserve UDP Cloud Direct, UDP Cloud Hybrid, and a legacy offering. UDP provides comprehensive Assured Recovery for virtual and physical environments with a unified architecture and an easy-to-use console. The product enables organizations to scale their IT environments easily while delivering against recovery point and recovery time objectives, on-prem, or in the cloud. It also allows for the automated disaster recovery testing of business-critical systems, applications, and data, without business downtime or impact on production systems. Recovery testing can be fully automated or performed on a scheduled basis.

Axcient

Axcient provides cloud-based disaster recovery and data protection to businesses of all sizes. The vendor’s Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) product, Axcient Fusion, can mirror all of an organization’s technological assets in the cloud as a means to replicate data centers on-demand. Fusion also allows users to access and restore data from any device, failover IT systems, and virtualize the business from a deduplicated copy. The solution was also built to run on the public cloud and offers one-hour and eight-hour RTO options.

Cloudian

Cloudian is an independent provider of object storage systems, offering S3 compatibility along with a partnership ecosystem. The vendor’s flagship solution, HyperStore, is a scale-out object platform designed for high-throughput object storage workloads. It provides scalability, flexibility, and economics within the data center. HyperStore also delivers an add-on file gateway to manage file workloads. Additionally, Cloudian’s data fabric architecture allows enterprises to store, find, and protect object and file data across sites. These processes can take place both on-prem and in public clouds within a single, unified platform.

Cohesity

Cohesity is a data management company that manages, protects, and extracts value from enterprise data. The provider’s flagship tool, Cohesity DataProtect, safeguards a wide range of data sources on a single web-scale platform. The solution can be deployed on-premises on qualified platforms in the data center, public cloud, and on the edge. Additionally, the platform utilizes a scale-out architecture that starts with a minimum of three nodes and scales without disruption by adding nodes to the cluster. Through this solution, users have the ability to use backup data directly on the platform without needing to restore it, which allows for the consolidation of other use cases, including dev/test and analytics.  Recently, Cohesity raised $250 million in Series E funding.

Commvault

Commvault provides data protection and information management software to help organizations protect, access, and use all of their data economically. The vendor has a long list of supported public cloud providers, hypervisors, big data support, and database protection. The platform is primarily offered as a software-only solution, but Commvault also has an appliance option and an enterprise-grade SaaS offering for backup and recovery through Metallic. Commvault also acquired the data storage solution provider, Hedvig. The vendor’s software, solutions, and services are available directly through the company, as well as through a global ecosystem of partners.

HYCU

HYCU specializes in multi-cloud data backup, management, migration, protection, and recovery for on-premises and hyperconverged (HCI), Google Cloud, Azure Cloud, and multi-cloud infrastructures. Headquartered in Boston, Mass., HYCU harnesses 25 years of sophisticated IT experience, insights from over one million users, and works with more than 25,000 customers worldwide. The result is alignment with industry leaders and a competitive advantage in the multi-cloud space. HYCU’s flagship products, a purpose-built Data Protection solution for Nutanix, a managed Data Protection as a Service for Google Cloud Platform and Azure Cloud, and HYCU Protégé, a Multi-Cloud Data Protection Solution offer one-click cross-cloud migration, disaster recovery, and consolidated management. 

NetApp

NetApp is a storage, cloud computing, information technology, and data management solution provider. In addition to predominantly offering on-prem storage infrastructure, the provider also specializes in hybrid cloud data services that facilitate the management of applications and data across cloud and on-prem environments in order to accelerate digital transformation. NetApp uses hyperconverged infrastructure as the foundation for its hybrid cloud. While there are several hardware platforms that could be configured to act as the on-prem component of a hybrid deployment, NetApp HCI allows for consistent management across multiple clouds.

Pure Storage

Pure Storage is an all-flash enterprise storage provider that enables the broad deployment of flash in data centers. FlashBlade is the provider’s purpose-built unified file and object product. Pure Storage provides a scale-out distributed file system that can handle tens of billions of files and objects for maximum throughput and parallelism by adding blades to scale capacity and performance. Additionally, the vendor offers support for scaling to 150 blades, as well as replication and file system rollback for its Purity//FB software. Pure Storage also enables users to adopt next-generation technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, to maximize the value of their data. In 2020, Pure Storage acquired Portworx for $370 million.

Rubrik

Rubrik primarily provides data protection and data management in hybrid IT environments with its flagship product, Rubrik Cloud Data Management (RCDM). The platform is a scale-out-architecture-based data protection tool with cloud integration, live mount for Oracle Databases, support for Office 365 backup, and support for SAP HANA backup. Additionally, in 2018 Rubrik acquired Datos IO, a company specializing in data protection of NoSQL databases. The vendor also offers Polaris Radar, a solution that provides ransomware detection and remediation. Rubrik‘s solution is recommended to buyers looking to protect highly virtualized on-prem environments and hybrid environments that leverage Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). 

StorageCraft

StorageCraft provides backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity products for servers, desktops, and laptops. StorageCraft also offers system migration and data protection solutions. The vendor aims to provide reduced downtime and improved security and stability to enterprise organizations. StorageCraft’s business focuses on data protection and restoration tools that are offered via value-added and channel partners. However, it also provides scale-out storage, replication, recovery, integrated data protection, and more. 

Veeam

Veeam Backup & Replication is a data protection and disaster recovery solution for virtual environments of any size. It provides fast, flexible, and reliable recovery of virtualized applications and data. The provider unifies backup and replication in a single solution, increases the value of backup, and reinvents data protection for VMware VSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual environments. Veeam offers free promotions for physical server backup and O365 Exchange Online. The solution also features data center functions, including tape support and snapshot storage integration, along with key deduplication backup integration. Recently, Veeam was acquired by Insight Partners for $5 billion.  

Veritas Technologies

Veritas Technologies provides backup and recovery, business continuity, information governance, and storage management tools. Its NetBackup product is a single and scalable solution that can protect physical, virtual, and cloud workloads. Multitenant support is optional, and the solution is available on a converged platform that requires minimal administration, even in large environments. It eliminates point products and improves productivity within a business using centralized, policy-based management. Veritas also incorporates innovative technologies for data reduction and bandwidth efficiency while providing extensive indexing and search capabilities. To extend its digital compliance portfolio, Veritas acquired Globanet in 2020. 

Zerto

Zerto offers an IT Resilience Platform, which combines backup, disaster recovery, and cloud mobility into one converged solution. Through an enterprise–scale, the provider’s software platform delivers continuous availability, which minimizes downtime. Additionally, IT Resilience simplifies workload mobility in order to protect, recover, and move applications across hybrid and multi-clouds freely. Users can replace their legacy solutions through Zerto’s single platform. Zerto also powers resiliency offerings for Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and AWS. In 2020, Zerto raised $33 million in equity financing, which allowed the provider to draw up to $20 million in additional venture debt under an existing credit facility.  

Read the 2021 CRN Cloud 100.