Why Acronis validation for Ignition is critical for OT resilience

Technology failures are inevitable in operational technology (OT) environments. While prevention is essential, the ability to recover quickly is what ultimately protects operations. When OT systems fail, production stops and the costs of reduced production, missed deliveries and possible regulatory problems immediately begin to accumulate.

Manufacturers, utilities and industrial operators need to be able to get systems up and running again as rapidly as possible after an incident. That’s not easy because manufacturers must integrate IT and OT systems again before production can resume.

What manufacturers need is a backup and recovery solution that works seamlessly with the SCADA, HMI and IIoT systems that control production environments. And they need one they know they can trust. The recent validation of Acronis as an Inductive Automation technology partner within the Ignition Technology Ecosystem Program confirms that Acronis meets the technical requirements OT environments demand.

Ignition from Inductive Automation ties a manufacturer’s factory floor to its IT system. It enables users to connect unlimited data across their entire organization, and rapidly develop industrial automation applications and scale systems. The platform bridges plant-floor equipment with SQL databases and uses a modular architecture that lets users add integrated software modules for SCADA, MES, IIoT, reporting, alarming and other functions.

With Ignition certification, Acronis makes a critical shift from general IT vendor to a platform-validated OT partner. That’s important for three groups in particular.

Control system integrators who design and deploy Ignition projects face constant pressure to reduce project risk, meet tight timelines and minimize post-deployment support tickets. Ignition is deployed across manufacturing, utilities, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and other industrial sectors, where system failures can halt production worth millions of dollars per hour.

A validated backup and recovery partner such as Acronis reduces integration uncertainty. Rather than testing compatibility across different OS versions, hardware configurations and air-gapped networks, integrators can confidently recommend a proven solution that has already passed partner compatibility checks with Inductive Automation.

This validation enables integrators to:

• Include Acronis in project scopes and statements of work as the recommended resilience layer, reducing the research burden on end customers who would otherwise have to evaluate multiple vendors.

• Shorten project timelines by eliminating trial-and-error testing of backup solutions against Ignition architectures.

• Reduce support tickets by working with a vendor that understands the specific requirements of Ignition-based deployments, from protecting engineering workstations running the Ignition Designer to backing up gateway configurations.

For integrators who operate on fixed-price contracts, those advantages translate directly to improved margins and lower project risk.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) who embed Ignition's UI or edge runtime into industrial equipment face a different challenge: supporting customers who often lack dedicated IT staff. Manufacturing and industrial environments frequently operate in air-gapped configurations where even IT professionals with remote management tools cannot assist with recovery operations.

When an HMI workstation or control PC fails, the cost quickly cascades beyond hardware replacement. Production stops, support calls flood in and warranty terms come under scrutiny. OEMs that provide equipment without a proven backup and restore strategy bear the operational and reputational cost of extended downtime.

Acronis has established partnerships with leading industrial automation vendors including ABB, Emerson, Schneider Electric and Rockwell Automation, providing examples of field-proven deployment patterns that OEMs can replicate. Ignition validation confirms that Acronis protects a broad range of OT environments, including those that use hardware from different OEM vendors with Ignition as a SCADA / MES layer.

OEMs can white-label or bundle Acronis as part of their standard platform offering, providing:

One-click recovery capabilities that enable plant-floor operators to restore failed systems rapidly and without any assistance at all from IT.

Support for legacy operating systems, addressing the reality that many OT environments still run older Windows versions that other backup vendors have abandoned.

Air-gap compatibility, ensuring backup and recovery operations function in disconnected environments common to industrial settings.

By offering resilience as a built-in feature rather than an afterthought, OEMs differentiate their equipment and reduce the total cost of ownership for customers.

Manufacturing plants, energy facilities, pharmaceutical operations and transportation systems face operational constraints that backup solutions that focus solely on IT often can’t handle. These environments frequently run on platforms the computing world has left behind, with mandatory uptime requirements that make security updates and maintenance difficult.

For procurement teams evaluating backup solutions, Ignition certification demonstrates reduced integration risk and operational friction. OT teams can accelerate technical approval based on certified-partner status instead of having to conduct lengthy proof-of-concept trials to verify compatibility with existing Ignition deployments.

Ignition validation also addresses compliance requirements. The Acronis Cyber Protect for OT platform helps vendors meet regulatory requirements, including NIS2 and ISA/IEC 62443. Working with a validated partner simplifies audit documentation and regulatory reporting for organizations operating under those frameworks.

Practical advantages for OT-driven enterprises include: faster procurement decisions based on prevalidated compatibility rather than extensive internal testing, and easier technical approval from OT teams who can reference Inductive Automation's extensive partner verification process.

Better alignment with existing Ignition deployments across multiple facilities reduces vendor fragmentation. That’s important for OT teams looking to meet certain key performance indicators (KPIs) for cyber resilience maturity, including:

• Percentage of sites meeting a defined cyber-resilience baseline, which allows multi-plant organizations to benchmark plants against standardized backup and recovery readiness.

• Reduced time to restore isolated OT assets after an incident, which helps limit production downtime once compromised systems have been contained and cleared for recovery.

Acronis Cyber Protect for OT delivers compliance support through integrated features designed for industrial regulatory stipulations and aligned with industrial regulatory and cyber insurance requirements. For example, Acronis is IEC 62443-4-1 certified and supports compliance with other standards, including NIS2, NERC-CIP and GxP.  

The distinction between being a general IT backup vendor and a platform-validated OT partner fundamentally changes how buyers evaluate risk and value.

Ignition acts as a universal industrial application platform that connects plant-floor equipment, SQL databases and IIoT devices. Recovery becomes unreliable when backup solutions fail to account for these specific architectures, including the distributed nature of Ignition gateway deployments, the real-time tag databases or the Python scripting engines.

Acronis Cyber Protect for OT supports every OT system OS from the XP era to present, protects systems in air-gapped environments and provides backup and recovery without requiring external network connections.

Validation from Inductive Automation's Technology Ecosystem Program provides external verification that these capabilities have been tested against real-world Ignition architectures. For buyers navigating the complexity of OT vendor selection, this third-party validation reduces due diligence burden and procurement risk.

Participation in the Ignition Technology Ecosystem Program requires members to meet specific criteria and maintain ongoing validation. Technology providers must demonstrate compatibility and contribute validated resources.

For Acronis, that means continuous verification that backup and recovery capabilities align with Ignition's evolving platform architecture. As Ignition releases new versions and modules, validated partners must maintain compatibility testing and documentation.

Organizations running Ignition-based control systems need backup and recovery solutions designed for their specific operational constraints: legacy OS support, air-gap compatibility, rapid recovery without IT expertise and proven integration with the SCADA/HMI/IIoT architectures they depend on daily.

Acronis’ validation as an Ignition Technology Ecosystem partner provides independent assurance that Acronis has met all of those requirements via rigorous testing. For control system integrators, OEMs and OT enterprises, this validation translates to reduced risk, faster deployment and greater confidence that recovery will work when production depends on it.

Learn more about Acronis Cyber Protect for OT and how validated backup solutions support operational technology environments.