Data management vendor Arctera has updated their Arctera Backup Exec solution, adding built-in Microsoft Entra ID protection and enhanced Microsoft 365 backup performance. The Backup Exec platform now eases the complexity of protecting Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and hybrid workloads from threats like ransomware, insider attack, natural disasters and human error, to help organizations recover operations with speed and reliability. The solution now also protects identity as well as data.
Backup Exec was originally a Veritas product until its sale in late 2024, which led to the creation of Arctera. Arctera itself indicated in August it being sold to the Cloud Software Group Arctera, and will operate as a standalone business unit within the Cloud Software portfolio.
“In that sale, Cohesity got NetBackup, which was the Veritas enterprise solution, and Arctera received the three parts of Veritas that did not go to Cohesity,” said Simon Jelley, Vice President & General Manager, Data Protection at Arctera. “One was Backup Exec, which served the mid-market and below, organizations with 1000 people and less. The others were data compliance, with Enterprise Vault, and the third was data resiliency, with InfoScale, which provided failover and disaster recovery.”
Arctera is highly Microsoft-centric.
“Given that the midmarket focus is largely Microsoft-centric, and that you are having a lot of customers shift online, we have always had support there, as customers transform to the cloud and SaaS world,” Jelley said
This update also strengthens Backup Exec’s role to protection for IT generalists and backup administrators. The platform eases the complexity of protecting Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and hybrid workloads from threats such as ransomware, insider attack, natural disasters and human error, helping organizations recover operations with speed and reliability.
“In a world where organizations are increasingly having to do more with less, the role of guaranteeing recovery is increasingly shifting away from data protection specialists to being a part-time responsibility of other IT roles,” Jelley noted. “This is why we have always focused on delivering simple, unified and powerful data protection with Arctera Backup Exec. We are now extending this philosophy to not just protect data, but also identity.”
The new capabilities included Microsoft Entra ID settings and relationships being safeguarded in every deployment, ensuring rapid recovery if accounts or configurations are compromised. Microsoft Entra ID is the cloud version of the on-prem Azure Active Directory.
“This enhancement is brand new for the protection of SaaS based assets,” Jelley said. “We provided on-prem protection for Active Directory. We now provide two things –protection and a recovery method. This includes a safe copy of that data you can retrieve. Unlike many other vendors, who offer this as an add-on product and license, we have one simple license model, all integrated into the one code base.”
Microsoft Entra ID now protects identities by default as well. Settings and relationships are safeguarded in every deployment, ensuring rapid recovery if accounts or configurations are compromised.
“Identity is the “front door” to systems – weak identity protection undermines even the strongest data protection,” Jelley added. “Many businesses have wisely adopted zero trust strategies to keep their data safe. However, this makes it critical for those businesses to be able to restore user permissions in the event that their identity management tools are compromised. After a ransomware attack, companies may be able to restore their data, but end users will not be able access it until identity data is restored first – meaning business operations are still paralyzed. With these enhancements to Backup Exec, Arctera is giving organizations a single platform that protects everything they need to bounce back quickly and simply when disruptions occur.”
Backup Exec now delivers stronger Microsoft 365 resilience. Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams data are backed up faster, more simply, and at scale to reduce downtime and risk.
“We already had data protection for Microsoft 365,” Jelley noted. “We are now adding the ability to increase the scale at which we protect. We can now protect at any scale.”
A new Recommendation Tool guides smarter planning by analyzing Microsoft 365 environments and providing administrators with clear, actionable guidance to optimize backup strategies. “There are less specialists in backup now, and it is increasingly part of the IT generalist responsibility. We have packaged this free tool into a separate recommendation tool, which will scan the Microsoft 365 environment, and say what you need to protect it. It helps partners to better advise clients. We can give partners more data. And it takes a paid product and makes it free.”
Finally, the speed and flexibility of Backup Exec is improved, with enhanced incremental and consolidated backups, streamlined delegation, and load balancing for Microsoft 365, along with subscription edition support that simplifies administration and improves performance.
“Recovery speed is also improved by up to 4 times,” Jelley said. And it is all integrated, with nothing more to buy.
“IT teams are increasingly being asked to do more with less, all while cyber threats rapidly evolve and escalate,” said Jason Buffington, Principal Analyst, Data Protection Matters. “Identity is on the front lines of any cyber-preparedness strategy, so integrating its protection within the solution that you entrust your data to is certainly an elevation in your resilience strategy. Backup Exec has earned its reputation for simplifying data protection, so it’s exciting to see Arctera ensuring identity is as protected as data for more comprehensive cyber recovery. It’s a thoughtful step that positions customers to stay ahead as protection demands progress.”
Jelley said this is huge news for channel partners.
“It was already a huge channel product,” he stated. “The Recommendation tool empowers the channel first and foremost, We were with Insight and SHI, and there was a lot of excitement with their sellers. Backup is more than backup. It’s cyberresiliency. The channel doesn’t make money selling a single solution like Backup Exrc, but by putting complementary products around it.”