While celebrating its 15-year anniversary, data protection firm Acronis announced their Acronis Data Cloud 7.8 update to their platforms, which among several new bells and whistles, now includes a solution powered by blockchain.
“Everybody needs cyber protection and we make it easy to sell and to use. We listened to our partners’ feedback and introduced new features that make it easier for them to meet the needs of their customers,” said John Zanni, president of Acronis, in a statement.
Adding to the existing Acronis Backup Cloud, Disaster Recovery Cloud and Acronis Files Cloud, the company is introducing a new service called Acronis Notary Cloud, a blockchain-based service for file notarization, e-signing and data verification.
According to a press release, the service creates a digital fingerprint for files and stores it in a public blockchain ledger, allowing independent validation of a file’s authenticity and existence at any point in time.
While blockchain has been a popular buzzword for the past year, its real-world applications have alluded many businesses who have tried to take advantage of it.
Deloitte’s 2018 global blockchain survey indicates nearly 40 per cent of respondents from seven different countries, including Canada, believe the rhetoric on the technology’s potential is overly optimistic. But Acronis says the new service is a complementary tool that “can easily verify the authenticity of their data.”
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Acronis has also added cloud-to-cloud backup for Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business, and SharePoint Online. According to Acronis, backups are performed directly between Microsoft and one of Acronis’ data centres, and those centres can be located in a country specified by the service provider.
The latest update also comes with new runbooks for its Acronis Disaster Recovery Service, basically allowing users to do disaster recovery without professional help, and lastly, Acronis Active Protection now comes with better ransomware detection.
“This release introduces improved machine-learning technology to better recognize known and unknown threats and reduce false positives,” said Acronis. The new version also protects network shares and removable devices.
While it’s no surprise, Acronis took the opportunity to remind everyone during the latest announcement that its previously announced integrations with Google Cloud and with Microsoft Azure Cloud Services have been incorporated into this release.