Enterprise Backup and DR in India: the 2026 buyer’s guide
Five platforms decide most Indian backup projects. Here is which one fits your estate, your budget and your restore test. Verdict first, then the proof.
When Enterprise Backup and DR still fits
Before you switch, check whether you are actually in the group that should stay put. We sell and service Enterprise Backup and DR, so this list is honest.
Rs 22 lakh. That is what two days of frozen ERP cost a Jaipur firm last year, counted honestly. The backup existed. Nobody had ever restored it. That gap is the whole category in one sentence.
The category split into three jobs in 2026, not one. Copy your data. Recover the business. Prove to an auditor that both work. A tool that nails the first and fumbles the third is now a compliance risk under the DPDP Act, not just an IT inconvenience.
The newer thing most buyers miss is the vault. Ransomware crews now hunt backups first and delete them before they touch production. An immutable, offsite copy the attacker cannot reach is the 2026 baseline, not a premium add-on. If a quote does not spell out immutability and where the offsite copy physically sits, it is selling you a copy, not a recovery.
The older truth still holds. The 3-2-1 rule survives because it works. Three copies, two kinds of media, one offsite. A NAS in the same room as the server it protects burns in the same fire. Cloud did not repeal this rule. It gave you a cheaper place to keep the offsite copy.
Every real choice flows from two numbers. How much data can you lose, measured in time. How long can you be down. Answer those in rupees on your worst Wednesday and the shortlist writes itself. Skip them and you buy on brand names and feature sheets, which is how firms overpay.
Data residency moved from nice-to-have to line item. If your board or your insurer wants backups inside India, cloud DR on CtrlS, ESDS or Yotta keeps the copy onshore and DPDP-defensible. Ask where the bytes land before you sign, not after.
Enterprise Backup and DR at a glance
The brand you are benchmarking everything else against.
Enterprise Backup and DR
- Market shape 2026
- Cohesity became the largest data protection vendor after absorbing the Veritas NetBackup business in December 2024. Veeam still leads on revenue and mid-market share. The two argue over the number one crown. You benefit from the price fight.
- Platforms that cover India
- Veeam, Commvault, Cohesity, Veritas NetBackup and Acronis reach almost every Indian estate, from a 20-seat office to a Fortune-scale datacentre.
- Price bands
- Acronis from Rs 2,499 per workstation a year. Veeam roughly Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000 per workload a year by edition. Commvault around Rs 25,000 per licence unit. Veritas NetBackup near Rs 1 lakh per unit at the enterprise end.
- The 2026 baseline
- Immutable plus an offsite copy. Any insurer or auditor now expects it. A single in-room copy no longer counts as a backup.
- Regulatory pressure
- The DPDP Act treats an unrecoverable breach as a safeguards failure, with penalties up to Rs 250 crore. Backup is now a board line, not just an IT one.
- Use-case fit
- SMB and MSP to Acronis. Virtualised mid-market to Veeam. Regulated or mixed enterprise to Commvault. Consolidation and vaulting to Cohesity. Largest databases and BFSI to Veritas NetBackup.
The 5 alternatives, honestly compared
Every brand below is one Sirius Star supplies and services in India. We make money either way, which is exactly why we can be straight with you.
Veeam
The fastest platform to stand up on a virtualised estate.
- Time to value is the real edge. A 200-VM estate with Microsoft 365 on top gets protected inside a week.
- Hardened repositories give credible ransomware immunity on ordinary Linux or object storage, with no separate vault to buy.
- The Universal Licence follows the workload from on-prem to Azure or AWS, so you do not re-buy protection mid-migration. India price runs roughly Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000 per workload a year by edition.
The honest downside: Subscription only since 2024. Renewal quotes jump when decommissioned servers stay in the licence count. Clean the list before you renew.
View the Veeam page →Commvault
Backup, archive and cyber recovery in one policy framework.
- Cleanroom Recovery rebuilds critical systems in an isolated Azure environment after an attack.
- Workload reach runs from IBM iSeries and mainframe to containers, the corners Veeam leaves out.
- Commvault Cloud, formerly Metallic, hands the infrastructure to the vendor for lean teams. India licence units land around Rs 25,000 each, and large estates run into crores.
The honest downside: Breadth costs complexity. It rewards a trained backup team and punishes a thin one. Budget for skills, not just licences.
View the Commvault page →Cohesity
One scale-out platform for backup, files and an isolated vault.
- FortKnox delivers an air-gapped vault as a managed service, stronger than a hardened repository when the board wants provable isolation.
- Scale-out clusters grow node by node, so capacity planning stops being an annual panic purchase.
- Owning the Veritas NetBackup business since December 2024 gives it the largest data protection footprint in the market. Software runs roughly US$150 to US$400 per TB a year, quoted per project in India.
The honest downside: Best value arrives at consolidation scale. A small, tidy VMware estate pays for platform breadth it never uses.
View the Cohesity page →Veritas NetBackup
The proven workhorse for the largest, most mixed estates.
- Database integrations for Oracle RMAN, SAP HANA and DB2 are reference-class, built over decades in exactly these estates.
- Flex appliances arrive as turnkey bundles, so petabyte capacity lands without a storage architecture debate.
- FIPS and Common Criteria posture suits BFSI and government checklists. India entry deals run in the Rs 5 lakh to Rs 25 lakh band, with list near US$3,000 per front-end TB a year.
The honest downside: Premium pricing and a deployment that assumes a dedicated backup team from day one. Overkill for a 300-VM shop.
View the Veritas NetBackup page →Acronis
Cloud-first backup and security in one agent, priced for small estates.
- One agent covers backup, anti-ransomware and patching, which suits a lean team with no backup specialist.
- A Mumbai cloud data centre keeps the offsite copy onshore for DPDP comfort.
- Pricing is the lowest here. Around Rs 2,499 per workstation, Rs 5,999 per server and Rs 999 per Microsoft 365 seat a year. A dozen workloads stays under Rs 1 lakh a year.
The honest downside: Built for SMB and MSP scale. Push it into a large, complex datacentre and the dashboard and support strain.
View the Acronis page →Enterprise Backup and DR vs the alternatives: factor by factor
The specifics Indian buyers actually decide on. Scroll right on mobile.
| Factor | Enterprise Backup and DR | Veeam | Commvault | Cohesity | Veritas NetBackup | Acronis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best-fit estate | Match the tool to estate size and workload mix | Virtualised mid-market, 50 to 500 workloads | Regulated and mixed, mainframe to containers | Consolidation and vaulting at scale | Largest, most mixed datacentres | SMB and MSP, few servers plus endpoints |
| Indicative India price | Budget to the estate, not the brand | Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000 per workload a year | About Rs 25,000 per licence unit, crores at scale | US$150 to US$400 per TB a year, project-quoted | Rs 5 lakh to Rs 25 lakh entry, ~US$3,000 per FETB list | Rs 2,499 per workstation, under Rs 1 lakh for a dozen workloads |
| Ransomware defence | Immutable plus offsite is the 2026 baseline | Hardened repository with object lock | Cleanroom Recovery in isolated Azure | FortKnox air-gapped managed vault | Storage-agnostic immutability with adaptive MFA | Anti-ransomware built into the backup agent |
| Workload reach | Cover every system the business cannot pause | VMware, Hyper-V, cloud, M365, Kubernetes. No mainframe | Mainframe to Kubernetes, the broadest here | VMs, NAS, databases and M365 at scale | Largest mixed estates, reference-class DB agents, tape | Servers, endpoints, M365 and common SMB apps |
| Team needed to run it | Be honest about who touches the console | Small team copes, fastest to learn | Rewards a trained backup team | Plan the cluster first, then it runs itself | Assumes a dedicated backup team | One generalist admin, no specialist |
| Data residency in India | Ask where the offsite copy physically lands | Partner cloud or CtrlS, ESDS, Yotta for onshore | Azure regions or Indian partner cloud | On-prem cluster plus an Indian cloud tier | On-prem or Indian partner cloud | Mumbai data centre keeps it onshore |
| India route to buy | Partner-led sizing beats a raw licence | Licences, sizing and AMC through Sirius Star | Licences, sizing and AMC through Sirius Star | Licences, sizing and AMC through Sirius Star | Licences, sizing and AMC through Sirius Star | Licences, sizing and AMC through Sirius Star |
When switching from Enterprise Backup and DR pays off, and when it does not
Three questions. Answer them in this order. What does one hour of downtime cost you on your worst Wednesday. Who physically touches the console when something beeps. What is your data volume in 24 months, not today. If you cannot answer the first one in rupees, stop shopping and go measure it.
Then match the answer to a bucket. Under 25 seats or a lean MSP, Acronis does the job and leaves money in the account. A virtualised estate of 50 to 500 workloads with a small team, Veeam is almost always the cheapest and simplest, and the sensible move is a sizing exercise, not a new brand.
Above that, the question becomes what kind of complexity you own. Legacy and regulated workloads across the whole estate point to Commvault. A pile of separate backup tools you want to collapse into one, plus a board asking for a provable vault, points to Cohesity. The largest mixed datacentres with heavy Oracle or SAP and a dedicated backup team point to Veritas NetBackup.
Where this guide loses is the reflex switch after one ugly renewal quote. Migration means a three to six month dual-run, a decision about years of retention history, retraining and a fresh security review. Price that honestly and a 20 percent saving often disappears. Fix the licence count first. Switch only when the workload map has genuinely outgrown the platform.
How Sirius Star shortlists your Backup and DR
Free review first. Then a written quote in 24 working hours.
Site survey + sizing
Free 30-min call. We map load, runtime need, and current estate.
Shortlist quoted
Written quote in 24 working hours. Two or three brands, itemised, GST broken out.
PO and dispatch from Vashi
Typical 10 working days for stock SKUs. Staggered rollout if multi-site.
Warranty and service wrap
One escalation path whichever brand you pick. AMC and battery calendar in writing.
Alternatives to Enterprise Backup and DR in India FAQ
Common questions Indian buyers ask before switching brands.
What is the difference between backup and DR?
How do I protect backups from ransomware in 2026?
Which backup platform is cheapest for a small Indian business?
Can backups stay inside India for DPDP?
How often should we test a restore?
Cohesity now owns Veritas NetBackup. Are they still separate choices?
Can Sirius Star supply all five platforms?
Ready for a sized Enterprise Backup and DR/Alternatives quote?
Tell us your load and city. We ship both brands, honestly.
More topics
Related pages buyers read next.
Sources referenced
- Veeam Data Platform– veeam.com
- Commvault Backup and Recovery– commvault.com
- Cohesity completes Veritas data protection combination– cohesity.com
- Veritas NetBackup– veritas.com
- Acronis Cyber Protect– acronis.com
- Backup and Data Protection Platforms, Gartner Peer Insights– gartner.com