Last November, Altaro released a new version – version 8, of their solution to backup virtual machines. Eight versions in nine years prove Altaro’s continuous effort to offer a mature product used by more than 40,000 clients and globally recognized.
In two of my previous posts, I emphasized main features for version 6 and version 7 and here we will focus on the new features, prices and editions in version 8.
Main features
For those who don’t have much time, Altaro VM Backup supports both Hyper-V and VMware ESXi Hypervisors. Main features I like the most:
- Augmented Inline Deduplication – Reduce backup storage requirements on local/offsite locations, and significantly speed up backups
- Continuous Data Protection (CDP) – back up VMs as frequently as every 5 minutes
- Backup Health Monitor
- Hot/Live Backups
- Offsite Backups over WAN/Internet and over LAN/Local Connection
- Grandfather-Father-Son Archiving (GFS)
- Boot from Backup – Instantly boot any VM version from the backup location
- Restore clones – Can restore VMs to the same host but with a different name
- File Level Restore
- Restore VMs to a different host
- Sandbox Restore & Backup verification – Build and test a recovery plan to ensure you’re covered when disaster strikes
- RESTful API
WAN-Optimized Replication
WAN-Optimized Replication is the new feature in V8 and it is enabling users to make an ongoing copy of VMs to a remote site which allows mission critical systems to be failover to a remote site. This new feature enables businesses to be back up and running within minimal time if a disaster strikes or major incident occurs.
WAN-Optimized Replication feature is currently available for Hyper-V and will be available for VMware in future.
Editions
Altaro VM Backup – Unlimited Plus Edition provides you with full functionality and protects an unlimited number of VMs per Hyper-V or VMware Host.
Altaro VM Backup – Unlimited Edition provides you with full functionality and protects an unlimited number of VMs per Hyper-V or VMware Host.
Altaro VM Backup – Standard Edition provides you with advanced functionality and protects up to 5 VMs per Hyper-V or VMware Host.
Altaro VM Backup – Free Edition allows you to back up 2 VMs per Host (Hyper-V or VMware) for free, forever. It is aimed micro businesses, it is not a trial – it’s free to use for as long as you like.
| Altaro VM backup perpetual licence | Unlimited Plus Edition | Unlimited Edition | Standard Edition | Free Edition |
| Number of virtual machines that can be backed up and restored per host | Unlimited VMs per host | Unlimited VMs per host | 5 VMs per host | 2 VMs per host |
| Backup retention | Automatic | Automatic | Automatic | Manual |
| Cloud Management Console | ✓ | |||
| Cloud backup to Azure | ✓ | |||
| WAN-optimized replication | ✓ | |||
| Continuous Data Protection (CDP) | ✓ | |||
| Connectwise Automate (LabTech) Plugin | ✓ | |||
| Augmented Inline Deduplication | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Boot from Backup | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Support for MS Hyper-V Clusters (CSV) and VMware vCenter | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Exchange Item-Level Restore | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Grandfather-Father-Son Archiving (GFS) | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| Offsite Backups | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| File Level Restore | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Restore VMs to a different host | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Sandbox Restore & Backup verification | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Priority Technical Support (Phone, email, live chat) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Lightning Fast Support Call Response of less than 30 seconds | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Flexible Backup Scheduling | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hot/Live Backups | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Fast & Small Backups – Compression | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Restore Clone | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Military Grade (AES) Encryption of Backups | Primary and Offsite Backups | Primary and Offsite Backups | Offsite Only |
Conclusion
With Altaro VM Backup you have full control over your Hyper-V or VMware backup jobs across all hosts and also an outstanding support. Altaro VM Backup makes it easy and affordable to protect your virtual environment and is a good choice for virtual machine (VM) backups.
You can download Altaro VM Backup here.
