Back Sync File Up: Putting it All Together Conceptually

The other day, on a whim, we checked in with Axcient Anchor Support and asked them to find us a case of ransomware attack where an Axcient partner foiled the evil ones and saved a besieged client by means of an Anchor mass revision rollback.  We were naïvely thinking this might be an unusual occurrence. Support quickly emailed back the details on 6 Anchor partners, some with multiple client infections, all with client infections in the last few weeks!

Ransomware is scary, and anytime it is foiled we are happy. We were impressed with the way support used Anchor to recover basic unencrypted file data and then quickly and efficiently outwitted all the other digital piracy techniques. We were happy to hear that, in an imminent Anchor release, an even deeper level of ransomware protection will be available in which these added steps will no longer be needed.

It might have an added twist, but a file restore for ransomware is essentially a type of backup restore. Anchor is “backup” for files and folders only. It is not “scheduled backup” in any traditional sense. Rather than recovering from a restore point, it uses a combination of change logs and scans to create various revision points and rolls back to the latest version available from before a disaster strikes (a disaster like, say, a ransomware infection). It doesn’t have reporting or backup intervals in the traditional sense.

It is backup, though. Anchor does backup. In addition to all it’s amazing abilities as a HIPAA-compliant file sharing and work force augmentation tool, it can be used for backup.

Now, Axcient cut its teeth on scheduled file backup and more recently has majored in Backup and Disaster Recovery. We offer at least 5 different “flavors” of BDR (Replibit, ShadowProtect, Veeam, Acronis, AppAssure) and we believe that sooner or later every going concern with any data dependency will wish to use a full BDR solution with system image backup, giving them the ability to restore all business functions very, very quickly, either locally or from (and even virtually in) the cloud. Folks, that is really best practice, and sometimes, even for us at Axcient, we have had difficulty “putting together” file sync and backup in our own conceptual system. BDR is best.

But for all kinds of reasons, not every business is ready to go there yet, and our partners put their clients first the way we put our partners first. So, let’s just state the plain facts: some of our partners use Anchor’s mass revision rollback to protect their clients from ransomware and other data disasters.

We support them fully and are proud to be on any team with any tool that foils the bad guys.