Acronis Resource Center

It's not always easy to define Continuous Data Protection (CDP) because the term means different things to different vendors. In its purest form, CDP refers to making a backup of every change to every file as it is made and storing those changes in such a way that the file can be rolled by to any given instant. This usually involves stitching together all those changes to produce a copy of the file at given point in time.

As a data protection solution, CDP is an extreme approach and like most extremes, it is costly and resource intensive. True CDP is complex and often involves special hardware. Many of the software products are only designed to protect specific applications, such as Exchange e-mail. Also the storage requirements for true CDP tend to be extensive, since every single change to the protected files is stored.

The fact is that most operations don't need true Continuous Data Protection. Backing up the partition or disk with frequent snapshots using a product like Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server or Acronis True Image Echo Workstation gives most enterprises most of the benefits of CDP without the cost or complexity CDP entails.

Acronis True Image can either do a full image backup or use snapshot technology to capture incremental backups of disks or partitions as frequently as the organization desires. Since Acronis True Image stores the time-stamped images for as long as needed, it is easy to roll back the disk or partition to any of the incremental backups. Acronis True Image also provides an easy way to browse any of the files and folders in any stored image to make sure the data is accurate before restoring it.