10 enterprise cloud backup services to consider in 2024
Cloud backup is a huge category of the data protection market today. With so many providers to choose from, businesses must prioritize the features they need.
As data becomes more and more decentralized, organizations need backup applications that can protect data regardless of where it resides. There are more enterprise cloud backup services than ever before, and choosing the right one is crucial.
Cloud backup providers cater to a wide array of customers. Although consumers often choose to use cloud backup for their home computers, this article focuses on cloud services that enterprises use to back up and manage business data.
Cloud services have become a staple for businesses because of their security, pricing, reliability and convenience. There have been several developments in the cloud backup space, such as the growing use of hybrid multi-clouds and SaaS applications. Security features are more critical than ever as ransomware has grown more sophisticated. With advancements in AI, some providers have begun to integrate automation and machine learning features.
This list of 10 enterprise cloud backup services presents some of the top options that can protect an organization's cloud data, along with some notable features, integrations and pricing. The list is based on the writer's research and professional insights into the market. In choosing the featured vendors, the author focused on leading cloud backup providers that offer strong security features, disaster recovery options and have global availability. All vendors in this roundup have been listed in Gartner's 2023 Enterprise Backup and Recovery Software Solutions Magic Quadrant as a leader, a challenger or a visionary.
This article is part of
What is cloud backup and how does it work?
This list is unranked and published in alphabetical order.
Arcserve
Arcserve offers numerous data protection products, with Arcserve Unified Data Protection (UDP) being the company's primary midmarket and enterprise backup option.
Notable features: Arcserve UDP provides cloud-based multitenancy with per-tenant reporting. Sophos Intercept X Advanced for Server guards backup servers against cyber attacks, detecting and preventing data exfiltration. The software also protects data against other common threats such as privilege escalation and credential harvesting. Users can write backups to immutable storage and are scanned for malware using both signature-based detection and a deep-learning neural network.
Integrations: Arcserve UDP offers protection for physical and virtual Windows and Linux servers, both on premises and in the cloud. Supported virtualization platforms include Nutanix AHV, VMware, Hyper-V, RHEV, KVM, Citrix and Xen VMs. Additionally, Arcserve UDP is designed to protect Oracle databases, Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint, Active Directory, file servers, NAS, SAN, UNIX, FreeBSD, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, SAP R/3 and SAP HANA.
Pricing: Arcserve does not publicly disclose pricing for Arcserve UDP, nor does it sell directly to customers. Arcserve UDP is available only through Arcserve's technology partners.
Cohesity
Cohesity DataProtect is available as a customer-managed option or it can be managed by Cohesity or one of its partners. The software is available as a service or as a software subscription.
Notable features: Cohesity has focused heavily on making its software extensible. DataProtect includes a huge number of built-in integrations, but Cohesity also provides an API and pre-built automated workflows that enable users to back up almost any workload. Cohesity DataProtect uses snapshots, which enable instant recovery even on a large scale. Users can write backups to immutable storage.
Cohesity uses a unified management platform that enables users to handle backups, disaster recovery, search and vulnerability scanning in one place.
Integrations: Cohesity supports numerous integrations in a variety of different areas including physical servers, virtualization platforms, applications, databases and storage. Virtualization support includes Hyper-V, VMware, Nutanix and Kubernetes. Physical server support includes Windows, AIX, Linux and Solaris.
Some of the supported applications include Microsoft 365, SAP Hana, and Epic, with the software also providing backup capabilities for Oracle, SQL Server, Mongo DB and Cassandra. Some of the storage platforms that are natively supported include Pure Storage, NetApp, HPE and Dell EMC Isilon. This is a partial list of integrations.
Pricing: Cohesity does not publicly disclose pricing for its products.
Commvault
Commvault Cloud is a zero-trust backup tool based on the company's Metallic AI engine.
Notable features: Commvault Cloud uses Metallic AI to provide automated threat detection and response. If an attack does succeed, recovery is assured since data is stored in an immutable format.
Commvault does not use AI solely for threat detection. AI has also been integrated into the recovery process.
Commvault claims that it can deliver rapid recovery at cloud scale. Commvault uses a single pane of glass interface for management.
Integrations: Commvault Cloud offers native support for Salesforce, Google Cloud, SAP, Microsoft 365, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, VMware and Oracle.
Pricing: Commvault offers various subscription services including Foundational Protection, Autonomous Recovery and Cyber Resilience. There is also a Platinum Resilience plan and the company offers several ancillary services such as data migration, ransomware response, and recovery readiness assessments. Commvault does not disclose the pricing for its plans and services.
Dell Technologies
Dell Data Protection consists of a portfolio of products designed for on-premises and cloud-based data protection. The products in this portfolio include PowerProtect Data Manager, PowerProtect Appliances, Data Protection Suite, Dell Apex Backup Services, Dell Apex Protection Storage for Public Cloud, Dell Apex Data Storage Services Backup Target, and Dell Apex Cyber Recovery Services. Customers must choose the offerings that will collectively provide them with the required level of protection. PowerProtect Data Manager is the core product that enables on-premises and multi-cloud data protection.
Notable features: Dell PowerProtect Data Manager is designed for autonomous operations. It automatically discovers and protects resources such as virtual machines, databases and containers. Users can write backups to PowerProtect appliances, as well as to the cloud.
Although the software is designed for centralized governance and control, Dell also offers a self-service feature. This enables data owners to protect and, if necessary, recover their own data.
Integrations: PowerProtect Data Manager is specifically designed to protect VMware environments. However, it also provides protection for Kubernetes and Hyper-V. The software enables organizations to back up Windows and Linux file systems. PowerProtect users can protect Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange Server and SAP HANA.
Pricing: Dell does not publicly disclose pricing for PowerProtect Data Manager.
Druva
The Druva Data Resiliency Cloud is powered by AWS and is a SaaS-based platform for backups and disaster recovery. Although Druva is native to AWS, it is designed to work with all major cloud providers.
Notable features: Druva's backup and data protection service places an emphasis on simplified management. The entire organization's backup operation can be managed through a single console, and there are no appliances to manage. Backup and disaster recovery operations are automated, further reducing complexity.
This automation is also used for ransomware recovery. Like many other providers, Druva offers immutable storage. However, Druva takes things a step further with air-gapped backups.
Integrations: Druva supports a variety of clouds, applications and platforms. These include AWS, Microsoft 365, Oracle, Microsoft Azure, Google Workspace, Salesforce, VMware, MacOS, Nutanix, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP HANA and Linux.
Pricing: Druva's pricing varies based on what an organization needs to protect. For example, protection for SaaS applications is billed based on the number of users, per application, per month. Endpoint protection is also billed on a per-user, per-month basis, while AWS infrastructure protection costs $7 per server, per month. Datacenter protection uses a credit-based system that is based on the number of terabytes of data being protected.
HYCU
HYCU is a SaaS-based backup platform that seeks to break down data silos.
Notable features: HYCU checks all the typical boxes with its various backup and recovery features. However, HYCU's most interesting feature is something that the company calls R-Graph. R-Graph is a tool for visualizing your data across the entire organization. In doing so, R-Graph exposes VMs, services, cloud instances, SaaS applications and more. The tool then identifies unprotected workloads and applications that may be at risk.
HYCU also offers the HYCU R-Cloud marketplace, which contains a huge collection of applications that HYCU can protect.
Integrations: Since HYCU focuses so heavily on eliminating data silos, it is not surprising that the company provides a huge number of integrations -- particularly for SaaS software. These integrations are largely a function of the HYCU R-Cloud marketplace. While there are way too many SaaS integrations to list them all, some of the notable integrations include Microsoft 365, Trello, Okta, Google Workspace, Monday.com and GitHub. These are in addition to the numerous public clouds, apps, databases and other platforms that the company supports.
Pricing: HYCU does not publicly disclose pricing for its services.
IBM
IBM Cloud Backup is a cloud-based backup tool that is designed to protect various workloads. On-premises servers and cloud-based instances use agents to communicate with IBM Cloud Backup.
Notable features: IBM Cloud backup works with on-premises data and is capable of cloud-to-cloud backup. Users can schedule backups according to the organization's needs and manage them through a Web-based GUI. If a restoration is required, then an organization can perform a granular recovery or restore an entire system image. Deduplication and compression features help to expedite backup and recovery operations.
Integrations: IBM Cloud Backup is an agent-based service. To protect a particular workload, customers must purchase an agent as an add-on to their IBM Cloud Backup service. IBM does not list all of the available agents, but it does mention the ability to protect Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. IBM agents are only compatible with Windows Server.
Pricing: IBM does not publicly disclose pricing for IBM Cloud Backup.
Rubrik
Rubrik's Enterprise Data Protection is a unified platform for protecting data regardless of where it resides. Rubrik can back up on-premises data, data in the cloud and SaaS application data.
Notable features: Rubrik's most notable capability is its protection against encryption from cyber attacks. Rubrik achieves this through an air-gapped, immutable file system.
Integrations: Rubrik provides numerous integrations for various workloads. Rubrik can protect Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, SAP HANA and NoSQL databases. Supported clouds include AWS, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Google Cloud, Amazon RDS and VMware Cloud on AWS. Rubrik also integrates with vRealize Automation and VMware Cloud Director.
Rubrik also enables fast recovery from data loss events. An integrated search engine makes it easy for users to locate the data they need to recover. This data can be mounted directly on the backup server.
Pricing: Rubrik does not publicly disclose pricing for its services.
Veeam
The Veeam Data Platform is Veeam's enterprise backup tool. It is designed to provide multi-layered protection for hybrid cloud environments. Veeam offers native protection for a wide variety of workloads, but also makes available an API that customers can use to protect custom workloads.
Notable features: Veeam offers all the standard backup and encryption expected in an enterprise backup product. However, Veeam's real strength lies in the ease with which users can recover data. Veeam automates data recovery operations, as well as backup testing. These nondisruptive tests ensure that data is recoverable and that users can meet backup service-level agreements (SLAs). If necessary, recovery operations can be directed to a different location, meaning that an organization can recover to the cloud.
Veeam backups can instantly create a test lab that is based on production environments. These test labs are commonly used for patch testing and other tasks that would otherwise have the potential to disrupt IT operations.
Integrations: Veeam features numerous integrations, including protection for platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, Kubernetes, VMware, Hyper-V and Nutanix. Some of the supported applications include Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Active Directory, SAP HANA, Oracle, SharePoint, Exchange Server, PostgreSQL and Oracle Solaris. Veeam supports Windows, Linux and Mac.
Pricing: Enterprise-grade editions of Veeam are available in Foundation, Advanced, and Premium plans. Veeam does not publicly disclose pricing for these plans.
Veritas
Veritas NetBackup is the company's enterprise cloud backup service. It combines data management, automation, machine learning and support for an elastic architecture to support multi-cloud backups.
Notable features: Like other backup providers, Veritas focuses heavily on security. This includes AI-based anomaly detection and inline malware scanning. One of the more unique security features is a multi-person authentication engine that users can set to require multiple people to sign off on critical operations, such as deleting data. This limits the damage that could potentially be done by a rogue administrator.
Another unique capability is storage-agnostic immutability. While several enterprise cloud backup services offer data immutability, these features usually require the use of a storage platform that has been specifically designed for data immutability. Veritas, on the other hand, supports immutable storage regardless of the underlying storage platform.
Integrations: Veritas provides integration with major SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack, Google Workspace and Box. Also supported are backups of Amazon RDS, Google Cloud Platform Cloud SQL, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Data Lake.
Pricing: Veritas does not publicly disclose pricing for NetBackup.
Editor's note: Enterprise cloud backup services were identified by industry experts and research. This article was updated to reflect 2024 information and improve the reader's experience.
Brien Posey is a 15-time Microsoft MVP with two decades of IT experience. He has served as a lead network engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense and as a network administrator for some of the largest insurance companies in America.
