Acronis Cyber Backup vs Ansible

If you don't have to manage your client's email and their email archiver Acronis works very well. If you're looking for just a backup service for what's on a particular computer then Acronis is perfect. It is easy to use, so newcomers are not overwhelmed with features.It does not include as robust features as Barracuda and Cloudberry, but it does work well as just a backup.

That is a big task for all the functionality now in Ansible Collections - Ethernet Networking, Fibre Channel Networking, Wireless networking, LB/ADC configuration & changes. Storage config and changes, VMware provisioning and changes, Windows Desktop provision when paired w/ a tool like Zuul, Workflow integration w/ ServiceNow (SNOW), Testing framework such as Molecule really all you to ensure what you have in your playbooks is solid...prior to deployment not when released to your consumers; Critical. Consistent runbooks instead of managing tons of scripts allows for cross-team training and functionality in a true disaster scenario. Additionally, conversion tools from other IT automation offerings Puppet and Chef, integration into Cloud environments. The list grows daily so jump in the water is just right!

• Image based backups. After the initial backup, the backups happen quite quickly. This allows for multiple backups per day.
• We have different classes of data which requires different retention policies. Acronis makes that easy to manage.
• Restoration can be done directly to hardware or to a VM. This makes it easy to migrate a physical server to a VM.

• Agentless. For our implementation, this is the single biggest factor. If we have to touch the machine and install an agent before we can start managing it, that's already too much effort and slows us down.
• Re-entrant. This is not unique to Ansible, but certainly a huge improvement over custom scripts and such. Because it's such a huge effort to make scripts re-entrant, most of our scripts did not allow an elegant way to recover on failure. Manually cleaning up the half-attempt and re-trying is still too cumbersome, and being able to just re-run Ansible is a great improvement!
• Infrastructure as code. This is new to Ansible, and there are still a few minor bugs with their AWS modules, but it's been a huge help being able to define our infrastructure in an Ansible playbook, commit it to source control, and use one tool for all our DevOps tasks.

• The web interface is slow and can kick you off from time to time
• I do find that the error messages are hard to decipher if/when a backup is unsuccessful. However, support is very good in helping out the solution
• The user interface is not intuitive enough to find failures in backups or track logs with alerts or errors

• Ansible Tower is a paid service, which can be annoying at times. But that is understandable, as it requires an additional level of support from the Ansible team to develop.
• There is a decently large learning curve for someone not familiar with setting up Unix environments. However, there is a very large support community with tons of documentation, so it's not a dealbreaker.

We have renewed our subscription over the course of a few years now. We used to use Backup Exec and it was tedious and difficult to obtain our backups when needed. Acronis just fits our environment style and the way we prefer to do business and use our third party software.

I give it a rating of 9 do to its ease of usability. It's ease of understanding how to setup - form - fit - and function. I have no sorrows when having to login to the console in order to setup a new backup schedule or retrieve and recover lost data.

Ansible is very friendly to start with. With just a few configurations, you have full management to your servers. You can configure it and implement it in seconds. You can also set up a cron job to make sure it gets implemented. It suits our need perfectly. Support can be a bit hard.

I only got one issue resolved for more than 20 cases open. The escalation is ineffective. Most of the time, I have the feeling that I know the solution better than the support technician. Overall, case management is time-consuming, as our resolution rate is really low

There is a lot of good documentation that Ansible and Red Hat provide which should help get someone started with making Ansible useful. But once you get to more complicated scenarios, you will benefit from learning from others. I have not used Red Hat support for work with Ansible, but many of the online resources are helpful.

I don't have any real key 'insights' per say except that it wasn't difficult at all, and do not be afraid to dabble in its tools and settings. It is quite intuitive with built in common sense. I cannot say enough good things about our companies experience when using this backup software.

We've looked at SolarWinds, Veritas, etc. but none of them had the right combination of features, price and ease of use when compared against Acronis and its ease of implementation, setup and recovery options. We didn't like the wait time for recovery with some of the others and being able to quickly get a machine back entirely was important to us.

Ansible is a great product, which we really love as it is compatible running along side and with other DevOps tool. The integration features allows other teams to participate in our shared objective. Ansible is easy to use as many programmers are familiar with Python and RHEL. We selected Ansible because its easy barrier to entry and pricing model for new users with not many nodes to manage. We will continue to develop and on-board teams and monitor the scaling abilities of Ansible.

I would love it if they offered better cloud space pricing or even "unlimited"

The ability to back up multiple servers from one source is a great tool to have for businesses that have equipment in different locations on the same network with a variety of software data to back up such as SQL, Exchange or a Files Server. You can decide to purchase individual server licenses as well if you would like to keep the process separate or have multiple sites where your data is housed.

• Every times you restore a file, you see the value and the ROI of backup.
• Backup is a great protection against ransomware, you can always restore files that has been infected.
• When you want to go back in previous version of files, it can be life saver.

• We have been able to deploy solutions to client issues without impacting uptime.
• Most system administration tasks have been automated so I am now free to work on architectural improvements or customer support.
• Our customer support has improved thanks to Ansible as it has allowed me more time away from repetitive system activities so I may assist with customer questions and application testing.