Acronis Cyber Protect 16 (on-prem)

Acronis Cyber Protect 16 is the on-prem flagship of the Acronis platform — the latest generation of the product family that started with Acronis Backup and evolved through Cyber Backup. It targets organizations that, for data-residency, regulatory, performance or cost reasons, prefer to keep the management plane and the storage plane inside their own data center rather than in the Acronis Cloud.

One platform, one agent, 20+ workloads. Cyber Protect 16 protects Windows Server (2012 R2 through 2025), Windows clients (10/11), macOS 12+ (Apple silicon native), and major Linux distributions (RHEL, CentOS, Rocky, AlmaLinux, Ubuntu, SUSE, Debian, Oracle Linux). On the virtualization side it covers VMware vSphere (5.5+), Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, Citrix XenServer/Hypervisor, Red Hat Virtualization, Oracle VM, KVM and Scale Computing. Application-aware backup protects Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Active Directory, Oracle Database (with RMAN integration), SAP HANA, MySQL/MariaDB and PostgreSQL — all with consistent point-in-time recovery.

Image-based and file-level backup. The agent can capture a bit-exact image of the entire system (boot sector, system state, applications, data) or perform granular file-level backup. Image backups enable bare-metal recovery — restore a failed physical or virtual machine to different hardware (Acronis Universal Restore drivers handle the hardware mismatch). File-level backups are storage-efficient and ideal for protecting user data and selective application data. Both modes coexist on the same workload with independent retention policies.

3-2-1 backup rule architectures. Cyber Protect 16 was built for the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of data, on two different media types, with at least one copy offsite. A typical on-prem architecture is local disk-based backup (copy 1, fast restore) + tape library or LTO archive (copy 2, different media) + Acronis Cloud or third-party object storage (copy 3, offsite). The product natively supports tape libraries (LTO-5 through LTO-9), local disk, SAN/NAS, deduplication appliances (Dell Data Domain, ExaGrid, HPE StoreOnce, Quantum DXi), Acronis Cloud, AWS S3 (and S3-compatible), Microsoft Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage and Wasabi.

Active Protection — behavioral anti-ransomware. Active Protection is the same behavioral anti-ransomware engine that ships with Cyber Protect Cloud, running locally on every protected workload. It watches process behavior for ransomware encryption patterns and stops the encryption process within milliseconds of detection — even from previously unseen ransomware. Any files modified before detection are rolled back from a self-protected cache. Critically, Active Protection also defends the backup files themselves: a ransomware process attempting to encrypt or delete the local backup repository is blocked at the kernel driver level. Independent SE Labs and AV-TEST evaluations have consistently shown 100% ransomware detection without false positives.

Advanced Security + EDR (optional). The Advanced Security pack adds full EDR capability on top of the Active Protection baseline. Attack chains are reconstructed as MITRE ATT&CK-mapped graphs. Suspected lateral movement (e.g., Windows Admin Shares, WMI, RDP, SMB), persistence (registry, scheduled tasks, services) and exfiltration paths surface automatically. Analysts can isolate the host from the network, kill processes, quarantine files, collect forensic artifacts and — uniquely — instantly restore the affected machine from a known-good backup taken before compromise. The post-incident loop, which normally spans EDR + backup + ticketing tools and several hours, collapses to a single console.

Advanced Backup capabilities. The Advanced Backup pack adds continuous data protection (CDP) — sub-minute RPO for tagged file paths and applications — plus database-aware backup for SAP HANA, Oracle DB and Microsoft SQL AlwaysOn, plus Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint cluster-aware backup. CDP is critical for transaction-heavy workloads (ERP, CRM, e-commerce databases) where any data loss is unacceptable.

Advanced Management. Patch management (Windows OS + 300+ third-party applications including Chrome, Adobe Acrobat, Java, Zoom, Notepad++, 7-Zip, VLC), software/hardware inventory, drive-health monitoring (S.M.A.R.T. predictive alerts that warn before disk failure), failsafe patching (snapshot taken before patch deployment so rollback is one click) and remote desktop assistance are bundled. The drive-health predictive feature alone justifies the module for organizations running large physical fleets — disk replacement gets scheduled before failure, not after.

Advanced DLP (DeviceLock). Endpoint data loss prevention covering USB, Bluetooth, clipboard, printers, screen capture, network protocols, instant messengers and uploads to cloud services. Pre-built classifiers cover GDPR personal data, HIPAA PHI, PCI-DSS cardholder data, ITAR/EAR export-controlled content and standard regex sets (IBAN, SWIFT, passport, national ID). Auditors evaluating ISO 27001 A.8.3 (Information and other associated assets) or SOC 2 CC6.7 (System operations) can document endpoint DLP coverage with DeviceLock policies and logs.

Advanced Email Security (Perception Point). An on-prem deployment can integrate with on-prem Microsoft Exchange or hybrid Exchange Online — adding BEC, phishing, ransomware, account-takeover and QR-phishing detection on top of native Exchange protection. API-based, no MX flip, no smart-host reconfiguration.

Universal Restore — hardware-agnostic recovery. One of the legacy strengths of Acronis: bare-metal restore to any hardware. The Universal Restore boot environment injects the correct drivers (storage controller, NIC, chipset) for the target hardware on the fly. A backup taken from a Dell PowerEdge can be restored to an HPE ProLiant or a VMware VM — no driver hunting, no service-pack reinstall. The same mechanism enables physical-to-virtual (P2V) and virtual-to-virtual (V2V) migration as a side effect.

Instant Restore. A backup of a virtual machine can be booted directly from the backup storage as a running VM in vSphere or Hyper-V — recovery time drops from hours (copy back, register, boot) to minutes. Background Storage vMotion / Live Migration then moves the running VM back to production storage with zero downtime. Instant Restore is a primary technique for meeting low-RTO SLAs without paying for full DRaaS.

Compliance and audit. Cyber Protect 16's local management console produces audit reports aligned with GDPR (encryption at rest and in transit, access logs, data minimization), HIPAA (audit logs, encryption, BAA support when integrated with Acronis Cloud), PCI-DSS (immutable storage option, key management, role-based access, log retention >= 1 year), SOC 2 (change management, incident response, monitoring) and ISO 27001 (Annex A control evidence). Sora Yazilim packages the audit evidence per framework as part of the deployment.

Licensing. Cyber Protect 16 is licensed per host (physical or virtual) or per VM/socket for virtualization. Add-on packs (Advanced Backup, Advanced Security + EDR, Advanced DLP, Advanced Email Security, Advanced Management) are licensed per workload. One-year, three-year and perpetual-plus-maintenance options exist. For organizations comparing TCO with Veeam Backup & Replication or Commvault, Acronis typically wins on the combined backup + security TCO since the EDR and patch-management costs are otherwise separate line items.

Notarization for forensic-grade integrity. Cyber Protect 16 supports blockchain-based notarization — the hash of each backup is anchored into a public blockchain (Ethereum), producing tamper-evident proof that the backup existed in a specific state at a specific time. For organizations under SEC 17a-4 (broker-dealer records), FINRA, Sarbanes-Oxley financial-records retention, eDiscovery legal-hold or ISO 27001 A.8.3 data-integrity controls, notarization provides cryptographically verifiable evidence that backups have not been altered. The notarized hashes can be independently verified by auditors without involving Acronis at all — a defining property for audit trust.

Backup encryption and key management. All backups are encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.2+ in transit. Two key-management modes exist: customer-supplied password (Acronis never sees the key — full self-managed) and certificate-based (X.509). For PCI-DSS Requirement 3.5 (cryptographic key management) and HIPAA 164.312(a)(2)(iv) (encryption controls) customers can opt for fully self-managed keys with key escrow handled externally. Sora Yazilim provides key-escrow services with separation-of-duties controls so the operational risk of lost passwords is mitigated without weakening the security property.

Cyber Disaster Recovery — full DR add-on. Cyber Protect 16 can hot-replicate workloads to Acronis Cloud as DR standbys (cold or hot). Failover orchestration via runbooks, isolated test-failover, EU (Frankfurt) / UK (London) / US / CH / JP region choice — full DR capability extended onto the on-prem product. Customers under ISO 22301 business-continuity requirements satisfy contingency-plan controls with quarterly tested DR runbooks. Failback to on-prem after DR exercise is fully automated.

Vulnerability assessment. Cyber Protect 16 continuously scans protected workloads for missing OS patches, outdated third-party software, known CVEs and end-of-support detection. The dashboard prioritizes by CVSS score, exposure and exploit availability. Combined with the Advanced Management patch deployment, this closes the assess > prioritize > patch > verify loop on the same agent — eliminating the need for a separate vulnerability scanner (Tenable, Qualys, Rapid7) for organizations whose primary vulnerability concern is endpoint patch hygiene.

Deduplication and storage efficiency. Cyber Protect 16's deduplication engine works at the source and at the destination — source-side dedup reduces network traffic by 60-80% on incremental backups; destination-side global dedup across the entire backup catalog typically yields 5:1 to 15:1 effective storage ratios on mixed-workload environments. Combined with native LZ4/Zstd compression and changed-block-tracking (CBT) for VMware and Hyper-V, the storage footprint is small enough to keep 12+ months of daily backups on commodity disk. Integration with Dell Data Domain, ExaGrid, HPE StoreOnce and Quantum DXi deduplication appliances is native — the platform writes in a format these appliances can post-process for further global dedup.

High availability and Management Server clustering. The Management Server (the centralized policy, scheduling and reporting layer) can be deployed as a failover cluster on Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) or as a load-balanced active/passive pair. The database backend can be Microsoft SQL Server (Express, Standard or Enterprise) with AlwaysOn Availability Group support. For large deployments (thousands of protected workloads) the storage node can be horizontally scaled by adding additional nodes that share the deduplication catalog. RBAC (role-based access control) supports separation of duties — backup operators, restore operators, security analysts and auditors each see only what their role requires.

Sora Yazilim deployment. Our certified engineers handle architecture design (3-2-1 sizing, deduplication appliance integration, tape rotation policies, immutable-storage planning, retention scheduling per regulatory framework), Management Server installation and clustering for high availability, agent rollout (silent install via Active Directory GPO, SCCM, Intune or Jamf), policy design with per-workload-tier RPO/RTO mapping, application-aware backup setup (SQL with always-on availability groups, Exchange DAG cluster-aware, Oracle RMAN catalog integration, SAP HANA HSR-aware), Active Protection + EDR enablement, DR runbook authoring with full failover/failback scripting, monthly recovery drills, quarterly DR exercises, annual full-restore exercises and SLA-backed 24/7 managed operations. Our standard managed-service package includes 15-minute first-response SLA, monthly health reports, quarterly compliance evidence packs (per GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, ISO 27001) and on-call incident-response engineering.