NAKIVO Inc. has launched Backup & Replication v11.1, a substantial update that significantly expands the platform’s disaster recovery capabilities and introduces new features tailored for Managed Service Providers (MSPs).1 Available as of October 6, 2025, this release focuses on five key areas: a multilingual interface, enhanced Proxmox VE support, a secure MSP Direct Connect feature, production-ready Real-Time Replication for VMware, and granular backup for physical machines.2 The update is designed to provide organizations with robust tools to minimize downtime and data loss across diverse IT environments.
Executive Summary for Security Leadership
This release represents a strategic enhancement to data resilience and operational security. The introduction of production-ready Real-Time Replication for VMware aims for near-zero Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), a critical metric for business continuity. The new MSP Direct Connect model eliminates the need for open firewall ports on client networks, directly addressing a common security concern and reducing the attack surface for managed services. Enhanced support for Proxmox VE brings enterprise-grade disaster recovery features to an increasingly popular hypervisor, while granular physical machine backups offer more efficient and targeted data protection strategies. The expansion to a seven-language interface reflects the global nature of modern data protection requirements.
- Real-Time Replication: Continuous data sync for VMware VMs, now integrated into Site Recovery workflows for automated failover.3
- MSP Direct Connect: Secures connections between MSP management consoles and client sites without requiring open firewall ports.1
- Expanded Proxmox VE Support: Adds instant recovery, replication, and template backup for comprehensive protection.4
- Granular Physical Backups: Enables backup of specific folders/volumes on Windows/Linux servers, optimizing storage and recovery times.3
- Multilingual Interface: Full UI support added for French, Italian, German, Polish, and Chinese (Simplified).5
Enhanced Disaster Recovery with Real-Time Replication
The transition of Real-Time Replication from beta to a production-ready feature marks a significant step in disaster recovery technology for VMware environments.3 This functionality provides continuous data synchronization, aiming to achieve a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of zero and significantly reduce Recovery Time Objectives (RTO). The setup process has been streamlined; the solution automatically deploys and configures the required IO Filter and Journal Service on the ESXi host and Transporter, reducing manual configuration errors.1 A critical integration point is the ability to embed a real-time failover action directly into Site Recovery workflows. During an outage, this allows the recovery job to automatically trigger a failover to the up-to-date replica, a process that minimizes downtime and operates without manual intervention. For data in transit, all replication traffic over unsecured Wide Area Network (WAN) links is encrypted using AES-256 to prevent potential interception.6
Securing Managed Service Provider Operations
The new MSP Direct Connect feature addresses a persistent security challenge in managed service delivery: establishing secure connections to client environments.1 The traditional model often required MSPs to open inbound firewall ports on client networks, creating a potential attack vector. This update eliminates that requirement, enhancing security and simplifying deployment while aiding compliance efforts.2 All communication between the MSP’s central Director and the Client Transporter is fully encrypted. Furthermore, the platform support for Direct Connect has been expanded to include Hyper-V and Proxmox VE environments, in addition to existing support for VMware and physical machines.4 This allows MSPs to manage heterogeneous client infrastructures from a single pane of glass without compromising on connection security, a vital consideration for maintaining data sovereignty across different jurisdictions.
Comprehensive Proxmox VE Protection
Building upon the initial support introduced in v11, this release adds a suite of enterprise-grade disaster recovery features for Proxmox VE, enabling organizations to protect these environments without costly infrastructure changes.4 The new Flash VM Boot capability enables instant recovery of Proxmox VMs directly from backups, restoring operations in seconds rather than the time required for a full data transfer.1 VM replication allows for the creation of replica VMs to ensure high availability and facilitate rapid failover during outages. The product now also protects VM templates, which is essential for maintaining consistent and fast deployment of pre-configured systems. Automated backup verification tests the recoverability of backups by booting VMs in an isolated environment and providing screenshots and reports for validation. For long-term archival, the solution enables direct recovery of Proxmox VMs and templates from tape libraries without a staging repository.4
Granular Data Protection for Physical Servers
The update provides more flexible and efficient data protection for physical Windows and Linux servers through granular backup capabilities.3 Instead of being limited to full-machine backups, administrators can now back up specific folders or volumes. This selective approach optimizes storage consumption and reduces bandwidth requirements for off-site transfers. These granular backups can be sent to a wide range of targets, including local storage, cloud repositories, deduplication appliances, network shares, and tape, with support for encryption and immutability to meet stringent cybersecurity and compliance requirements.1 During recovery, data can be restored to SMB/NFS shares, emailed as attachments, or downloaded directly via a web browser. This flexibility enables the quick restoration of individual items with minimal disruption to production systems, which is particularly valuable when dealing with ransomware incidents where only specific datasets are affected.
Technical Enhancements and Platform Support
The official release notes detail several other important updates that enhance the product’s robustness and compatibility.4 Full compatibility has been added with the latest VMware vSphere and vCenter Server 9.0, ensuring support for current virtual infrastructure. The solution now supports immutable backups on Dell EMC Data Domain systems, providing an additional layer of protection against ransomware that seeks to encrypt or delete backups. Transporter Load Balancing automatically distributes processing load across available Transporters to optimize performance and prevent bottlenecks during concurrent operations. Improvements to the Permanent VM Agent include support for both manual and automatic updates, simplifying maintenance and ensuring security patches can be applied promptly. The release notes also contain extensive information on known issues and limitations across all supported platforms, which is critical for deployment planning and risk assessment.
Industry and Organizational Impact
An industry perspective from Patrick Spencer, SVP Americas Marketing & Industry Marketing at Kiteworks, notes that v11.1 represents a “significant evolution in how organizations approach data resilience.”7 He highlighted the strategic importance of the enhanced MSP capabilities for maintaining “data sovereignty and compliance boundaries” and noted that the “multilingual interface expansion signals recognition that data protection is now a truly global imperative.” Bruce Talley, CEO of NAKIVO, stated that “v11.1 puts easily-accessible data protection within immediate reach—no matter the environment,” building on the company’s “13 years of backup and disaster recovery innovations.”1 The convergence of disaster recovery automation with enhanced MSP management capabilities indicates a trend toward more autonomous data protection systems that still maintain the necessary oversight for compliance and security governance.
For security professionals, the enhancements in NAKIVO v11.1 provide tangible improvements to disaster recovery preparedness. The Real-Time Replication feature demands scrutiny of network encryption between sites to ensure it meets organizational standards. The MSP Direct Connect model should be evaluated as a security control to reduce the attack surface in managed service scenarios. The granular backup for physical servers offers a more efficient method for protecting critical configuration and data directories without consuming resources on non-essential data. When implementing these features, organizations should verify that encryption for data at rest and in transit aligns with their security policies, and ensure that role-based access controls are properly configured to maintain the principle of least privilege across the expanded feature set.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication v11.1 delivers substantive advancements in disaster recovery automation, cross-platform support, and secure management for service providers. The focus on real-time replication, expanded hypervisor support, and security-conscious connectivity models addresses core requirements for maintaining business continuity in increasingly complex IT environments. As data protection continues to be a critical component of organizational resilience, these enhancements provide security teams with more robust tools to defend against downtime and data loss from various threat scenarios.
