Acronis Cyber Protect 15 is a solution that integrates backup, disaster recovery, AI-based protection against malware and ransomware, remote desktop, and security tools in a single agent

Based on Acronis Hybrid Cloud Architecture, it allows you to protect all the data, whether it is located on-premises, in remote systems, in private and public clouds, or on mobile devices.

Watch this video for an overview of the product:

Acronis Cyber Protect 15 has 4 editions:

• Acronis Cyber Protect Standard 
• Acronis Cyber Protect Advanced 
• Acronis Cyber Protect - Backup Standard (!) The edition is not sold anymore. 
• Acronis Cyber Protect - Backup Advanced

Acronis Cyber Protect Essentials/Standard/Advanced offers a number of new features and benefits in comparison with the Acronis Cyber Protect - Backup Standard and Backup Advanced, such as Anti-malware protection, URL filtering, vulnerability assessment, patch management, Windows Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Security Essentials management.

For a full comparative table of the options, refer to this article.

Acronis Cyber Protect 15 contains a wide variety of new features, including:

• One protection plan to cover all cyber protection aspects
• Devices Auto-discovery and Remote Agent Installation
• Vulnerability assessment and patch management
• Significantly extended antimalware capabilities
• Real-time antivirus protection
• URL filtering
• Disk health monitoring
• Remote access (RDP and HTML5 clients)
• Continuous data protection (CDP)
• Forensic backup
• Acronis #CyberFit score for the protected devices
• Zoom, WebEx and Microsoft Teams protection
• Remote device wipe

For a complete list of what's new in this version, refer to this page

A free 30-days trial version can be downloaded here.

Please note that the trial version has some limitations compared to the full one. Check this article for detailed information.

You can purchase a needed license directly on Acronis website or find your preferred reseller on this page.

Refer to this article for questions related to licensing of Acronis Cyber Protect 15.

Contact our Sales department if you have any questions.

For a complete list of the new features, please refer to release notes.

The cybersecurity features are supported on the following operating systems:

• Windows: Windows 7 and later, Windows Server 2008 R2 and later.
  Windows Defender Antivirus management is supported on Windows 8.1 and later.
• Linux: CentOS 7.x, CentOS 8.0, Virtuozzo 7.x, Acronis Cyber Infrastructure 3.x.
  Other Linux distributions and versions might also support the Cyber Protect features, but have not been tested.
• macOS: 10.13.x and later (only Antivirus & Antimalware protection is supported).

For detailed information on available features in each OS see this page.

Yes, Acronis Cyber Protect now incorporates anti-malware and anti-virus solution for full-stack protection against malware, plus AI-based ransomware and cryptomining defenses

If your machine is already protected with a third-party antivirus solution at the moment of applying the Antivirus and Antimalware protection module to the machine, the system will generate an alert and will stop the on-access protection in order to prevent potential compatibility and performance issues. You will need to either disable or uninstall the third-party antivirus solution, in order to enable fully functional Acronis Cyber Protect Antivirus and Antimalware protection.

Acronis Cyber Protect 15 continues to use a new .tibx backup format (introduced in Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5), in which each backup chain (a full or differential backup, and all incremental backups that depend on it) is saved to a single .tibx file. This format leverages the speed of the incremental backup method, while avoiding its main disadvantage–difficult deletion of outdated backups. The software marks the blocks used by outdated backups as "free" and writes new backups to these blocks. This results in extremely fast cleanup, with minimal resource consumption.

New format (Version 12) is automatically used for all new protection plans. For protection plans that use legacy Version 11 format, you can choose what backup format to use with Backup format option.

Refer to this page for detailed information.

A new .tibx backup format was introduced in Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5, in which each backup chain (a full or differential backup, and all incremental backups that depend on it) is saved to a single .tibx file.  This type of archive has a in-built deduplication mechanism. Blocks that are similar to the ones that already present under the archive won’t be backed up 

Deduplication in managed locations is available only in Acronis Cyber Protect Advanced and Acronis Cyber Protect - Backup Advanced.

You'll find more information on deduplication best practices here.

Support for tape devices is available only in on premises deployment of Acronis Cyber Protect - Backup Advanced or Acronis Cyber Protect Advanced.

For more information about it refer to this page.

Yes, Acronis Cyber Protect 15 includes centralized and remote management of backups to facilitate protection of all the data that resides on-premises, in remote locations, in private or public clouds, and on mobile devices.

This feature is available in Standard and Advanced edition.

Refer to this page to find a complete list of supported operating systems.

To start using Acronis Cyber Protect, you need activate your Management Server by registering it in Acronis Account.

Please refer to this page for detailed instructions.

1. Click Settings > Licenses.
2. Select a perpetual license. The software displays the license keys that correspond to the selected license. The machine that the key is assigned to is shown in the Assigned to column.
3. Select the license key to revoke.
4. Click Revoke.
5. Confirm your decision. The revoked key will remain in the license keys list. It can be assigned to another machine.

1. Click Settings > Licenses.
2. Select a subscription license. The software displays machines that the selected license is already assigned to.
3. Select the machine to revoke the license from.
4. Click Revoke license.
5. Confirm your decision.

Please refer to this page for more information.

Depending on the currently installed version, either you can upgrade directly or you may need to uninstall the current version first. Refer to this page for more information. 

With Acronis Cyber Protect 15 you can install Acronis Cyber Protect appliance (also known as All-In-One Appliance) that contains the following Acronis Cyber Protect components:

• Management Server
• Agent for Linux
• Agent for VMware (Linux)

This appliance can be installed independently, detailed instructions on how to deploy a virtual appliance can be found here.

Installation of Agent for VMware (Virtual Appliance) requires requires installation of management server before appliance deployment.

Acronis Cyber Protect 15 supports two methods of deployment: on-premises and cloud. The main difference between them is the location of Acronis Cyber Protect Management Server.

On-premises deployment means that all of the product components are installed in your local network. This is the only deployment method available with a perpetual license. Also, you have to use this method if your machines are not connected to the Internet.

Cloud deployment means that the management server is located in one of the Acronis data centers. The benefit of this approach is that you do not need to maintain the management server in your local network.

(!) Please note that Cloud deployment is available only for subscription licenses.

In both cases, to access the backup console, one should enter the login page address to the web browser address bar, and then specify the user name and password.

For on-premises deployment, the login page address is the IP address or name of the machine where the management server is installed. The Cloud console is accessible on https://backup.acronis.com/.

The following table summarizes differences between the on-premises and cloud deployments:

On-premises deployment

Cloud deployment

On-premises management server Unit and account management with the Advanced license only Both subscription and perpetual licenses can be used Bootable Media Builder Backup and disk management in bootable media Upgrade from previous versions of Acronis Backup, including Acronis Backup for VMware Tape devices and Acronis Storage Nodes as backup locations * Off-host data processing * Participation in the Acronis Customer Experience Program

A subscription license is required Cloud-to-cloud backup of Microsoft Microsoft 365 data, including protection of groups, public folders, OneDrive and SharePoint Online data Mobile backup to cloud Disaster recovery as a cloud service (add-on)

* The feature is not available in the Standard edition

 You can find more detailed information here.

Agentless backup at a hypervisor level is not supported for Free ESXi because this product restricts access to Remote Command Line Interface (RCLI) to read-only mode, but backup of the virtuals machines with the agent installed inside the guest OS is possible. Refer to this article for more details. 

No, host backup of Citrix XenServer is not supported. As for Citrix XenServer virtual machines, you can protect them by installing backup Agent inside them: see Acronis Cyber Protect 15 user guide for more information.

Windows user credentials are required to access the backup console.

See this page for instructions.

 

For detailed instructions, see this page.

 

You'll find detailed information on customizing installation settings on this page. 

• Disks/volumes of physical and virtual machines
• Files (physical machines only)
• ESXi configuration
• System state (in cloud deployments only)
• SQL databases
• Exchange databases and mailboxes
• Microsoft 365 mailboxes

For more information, refer to backup plan cheat sheet.

Acronis Cyber Protect lets you back up data to various physical storage:

• Cloud storage (Backups will be stored in the cloud data center)
• Local folders
• Network folder (shared via SMB/CIFS/DFS)
• NFS folder (available for machines running Linux or OS X)

• Secure Zone (available if it is present on each of the selected machines). For more information, refer to "About Secure Zone".

• SFTP (on-premises deployment only)

• Tape (only in on-premises deployment, with Acronis Cyber Protect - Backup Advanced or Acronis Cyber Protect Advanced license )
• Acronis Cyber Infrastructure

SFTP server can be used as a backup location in Acronis Cyber Protect 15 with the following limitations:

• Cannot be a destination for backups of machines running macOS.
• Cannot be a destination for application-aware backups and system state backups

Neither FTP, nor FTPS is supported.

Make sure that SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) is supported and activated on your server.

To select the SFTP server as a backup destination, type its name or address using the following notations:

sftp://<server>

sftp://<server>/<folder>

After entering the user name and password, you can browse the server folders.

Refer to this page for more detailed instructions.

A protection plan can be applied to multiple machines at the time of its creation, or later.

1. In the Cyber Protect web console, go to Devices > All devices.
2. Select the machines that you want to protect.
3. Click Protect, and then click Create plan.You will see the protection plan with the default settings

   

4. [Optional] To modify the protection plan name, click on the pencil icon next to the name.
5. [Optional] To enable or disable a protection plan module, click the switch next to the module name.
6. [Optional] To configure the module parameters, click the corresponding section of the protection plan.
7. When ready, click Create.

For detailed instructions, refer to this page.

 

 

1. Select the machines that you want to protect.
2. Click Protect. If a common protection plan is already applied to the selected machines, click Add plan. 

   

3. Select a protection plan to apply.
4. Click Apply.

For detailed instructions, refer to this page.

 

1. Go to Plans -> Protection tab 
2. Select the protection plan that you want to run and click Details in the menu on the right
3. Hover the mouse over Backup section (or other part of the plan, that you want to run now) and Run now button will appear:

   

4. Alternatively, click on the down arrow to open plan details, and click Run now button:

   

For a backup to Cloud, an active Cloud Storage subscription is required. 

Create a new protection plan(see section How to create a protection plan above) and choose "Cloud Storage" as a destination in the field "Where to back up" .

Find more information on how to browse the cloud storage, view the contents of the backups, and download needed files here.

For detailed instructions, refer to this page.

 

 

Create a new backup plan and specify the desired location in the field "Where to back up".

For detailed instructions, refer to this page.

Secure Zone is a secure partition on a disk of the backed-up machine. This partition has to be created manually prior to configuring a backup. For information about how to create Secure Zone, its advantages and limitations, refer to this page.

Once a Secure Zone is created, create a new protection plan and specify Acronis Secure Zone as a destination in the field "Where to back up".

The backup plans can be transferred from Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5 during the direct upgrade to Acronis Cyber Protect 15. Refer to this article for detailed instructions.

If during the upgrade a backup plan did not migrate automatically, recreate the plan and point it to the old backup file. If only one machine is selected for backup, click Browse, and then select the required backup. If multiple machines are selected for backup, re-create the old backup file name.

The following schemes can be set:

• Always incremental (single-file)
• Always full
• Weekly full, Daily incremental
• GFS (Monthly full, Weekly differential, Daily incremental)
• Custom

 Please refer to this page for more information about scheduling options.

Edit the protection plan and select a new backup scheme. Note that some schemes may be unavailable depending on the selected backup source and backup location. Refer to this page for more information about available backup schemes.

You can choose one of the following options to specify how long to keep backups created by the backup plan:

• By backup age (default)
• By number of backups
• By total size of backups (not available with the Always incremental backup scheme, or when backing up to the cloud storage, an SFTP server, or a tape device)
• Keep backups indefinitely

Refer to this page for detailed instructions on how to apply the retention rules.

For additional protection of the application data, enable Application backup in the parameters of the backup plan:

Application-aware disk-level backup is available for physical machines, ESXi virtual machines and Hyper-V virtual machines.

Please note that to be able to use application-aware backup, on a physical machine, Agent for SQL and/or Agent for Exchange must be installed, in addition to Agent for Windows. On a virtual machine, no agent installation is required; it is presumed that the machine is backed up by Agent for VMware (Windows) or by Agent for Hyper-V.

Refer to this page for more information about application-aware backup.

For SQL Server: 

The account must be a member of the Backup Operators or Administrators group on the machine, and a member of the sysadmin role on each of the instances that you are going to back up.

For Exchange Server:

Exchange 2007: The account must be a member of the Administrators group on the machine, and a member of the Exchange Organization Administrators role group.

Exchange 2010 and later: The account must be a member of the Administrators group on the machine, and a member of the Organization Management role group.

For Active Directory:

The account must be a domain administrator.

Refer to this page for more information. 

Yes, the backup file name can be changed. Please refer to this page for detailed information on backup file name option.

Acronis Cyber Protect offers Physical Data Shipping service that allows you to send your initial full system backups to Acronis Cloud Storage on a hard drive.

Yes, databases are fully accessible during backup. Acronis Cyber Protect creates a snapshot of entire database (or entire disk with database, depending on the type of backup selected) and then records the contents of the snapshot inside the backup archive. Thus the database is available during the entire backup process, as all the data is copied during snapshot and Acronis Cyber Protect no longer requires access to the database.

To create bootable media in Windows or Linux:

1. Download the bootable media ISO file. To download the file, select a machine, and then click Recover > More ways to recover... > Download ISO image.
2. Do any of the following:

• Burn a CD/DVD using the ISO file.
• Create a bootable USB flash drive by using the ISO file and one of the free tools available online.
• Connect the ISO file as a CD/DVD drive to the virtual machine that you want to recover.

You can also create bootable media by using Bootable Media Builder.

To create bootable media in macOS:

1. On a machine where Agent for Mac is installed, click Applications > Rescue Media Builder.
2. The software displays the connected removable media. Select the one that you want to make bootable.
3. Click Create.
4. Wait while the software creates the bootable media.

Please refer to this page for more detailed instructions.

To download bootable media ISO from Cyber Protection console, click on "account" icon in the top right corner and select Downloads from the menu. In Downloads window, scroll down to the Tools section and click Bootable media.

You can also download bootable media ISO from Acronis Account: see How to download Acronis bootable media ISO

If the operating system does not boot after recovery, use the Universal Restore tool to update the drivers and modules that are critical for the operating system startup.

Universal Restore is already included with Acronis Cyber Protect 15 and can be applicable to Windows and Linux OS.

To apply Universal Restore:

1. Boot the machine from the bootable media.
2. Click Apply Universal Restore.
3. If there are multiple operating systems on the machine, choose the one to apply Universal Restore to.
4. Configure the additional settings (for Windows only).
5. Click OK.

You'll find more detailed instructions here.

To recover disks by using bootable media:

1. Boot the target machine by using bootable media.
2. Click Manage this machine locally or click Rescue Bootable Media twice, depending on the media type you are using.
3. If a proxy server is enabled in your network, click Tools > Proxy server, and then specify the proxy server host name/IP address and port. Otherwise, skip this step.
4. On the welcome screen, click Recover.
5. Click Select data, and then click Browse.
6. Specify the backup location: select Cloud storage or browse to the folder under Local folders or Network folders. Click OK to confirm your selection.
7. Select the backup from which you want to recover the data. If prompted, type the password for the backup.
8. In Backup contents, select the disks that you want to recover. Click OK to confirm your selection.
9. Under Where to recover, the software automatically maps the selected disks to the target disks.
10. Click Recovery options to specify additional settings. (Optional)
11. Click OK to start the recovery.

For more detailed instructions, refer to this page.

To download files from the cloud storage, follow the detailed instructions on this page.

Yes, granular recovery can be performed to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and later. The source backup may contain databases of any supported Exchange version. For more information refer to this page.

Yes, physical-to-virtual migration is available in Acronis Cyber Protect 15. This operation can be performed if at least one Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V is installed and registered.

To perform the P2V recovery, follow instructions on this page.

No, this option is not available in this version. It is planned for future releases.