New Veeam Data Platform Includes Object Storage, Ransomware Warranty

‘Veeam Data Platform is recognition that our portfolio of products are integrated closely. It recognizes the power of the entire platform. Veeam is managing data across SaaS, cloud, and data center environments and the edge. We’re showing the future of managing data sets across all these different environments,’ says Danny Allan, Veeam’s chief technology officer and vice president of product strategy.

Data protection and management technology developer Tuesday released version 12 of its Veeam Backup & Replication software and made it available as part of a new offering, the Veeam Data Platform, which includes such new capabilities as direct to object storage backups, enhanced immutability, and a “SWAT” team to escalate issues.

Veeam Data Platform brings data security, data recovery, and close cloud compatibility into a single offering aimed squarely at channel partners and their customers, said Danny Allan, chief technology officer and vice president of product strategy for the Columbus, Ohio-based company.

“Veeam Data Platform is recognition that our portfolio of products are integrated closely,” Allan told CRN. “It recognizes the power of the entire platform. Veeam is managing data across SaaS, cloud, and data center environments and the edge. We’re showing the future of managing data sets across all these different environments.”

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With Veeam Data Platform, Veeam is very focused on three key business requirements, Allan said.

They include data freedom, which is the flexibility to move data across hybrid environments; data security, which is done via immutable backups and new anti-ransomware capabilities; and data recovery from any environment, he said.

Allan did not include data protection among the list of customer needs. “I didn’t mention data protection, but its fundamental to all the other three,” he said.

Veeam over the years has continuously improved, said Deepak Thadani, vice president at Focal Point Solutions Group, an Ellenton, Fla.-based solution provider and longtime Veeam channel partner.

“We’ve built a whole business around data center replication with Veeam,” Thadani told CRN. “You read lots of news about compromised backups. Veeam never did that to us.”

Bob Ungaretti, vice president of cloud and backup services at Focal Point Solutions Group, told CRN that Veeam has a history of continually improving its technology.

“We’ve been using Veeam for 12 years, and have never lost a backup,” Ungaretti said. “And that’s very important to us.”

New to Veeam Data Platform is Veeam Direct to Object Storage backups. Allan said that customers often think cloud when it comes to protecting data, which often means Amazon S3 and Azure Blob object storage.

“But backing up data is also done on-premises,” he said. “So we support data on all the major storage vendors. Customers often do not have on-premises object storage, and so they want to send object data to the cloud.”

The new object store capability is very important to Focal Point Solutions given that the solution provider hosts customer data internally, Thadani said.

“This gives us finer control over the backups,” he said. “Veeam supporting object storage internally gives us another option to not need cloud storage.”

Security is also a highlight of Veeam Data Platform, Allan said. Veeam is adding data immutability, which prevents the changing or deleting of backed up data, for all workloads. It is also now allowing multi-factor authentication in the Veeam console, as well as support for authentication in Kerberos and IPV6 environments, he said.

The security of backed-up data is all-important, Thadani said.

“We’ll be implementing multi-factor authentication,” he said. “And we’ll be looking to offer immutability to customers as an option, without needing to implement multiple solutions to do it. These are important for customers looking to hold data for multiple years.”

Also new is Veeam’s Smart Storage API for object storage, which allows primary storage vendors to easily connect to Veeam Data Protection, Allan said. The company also updated its Universal API to better manage replication between on-premises arrays using the array vendors’ native APIs, he said.

Veeam is also showing it will stand behind the protection offered by Veeam Data Protection with a new ransomware warranty for customers that adopt the company’s suggested best practices for data protection, Allan said.

“This sheds the spotlight on our best practices,” he said. “To be eligible for the warranty, customers need to prove they have followed the best practices. We can implement those best practices for clients, or their channel partners can do it.”

One example of a best practices is ensuring that the Veeam backup and recovery server is not part of a customer’s primary storage domain. “This way, if an attack does get into the primary environment, it can’t move laterally to the Veeam backup and recovery server,” he said.

Forcing customers to follow best practices as a requirement for the ransomware warranty is a smart move by Veeam, Ungaretti said.

“For us, we’ve already isolated our Veeam backup and recovery server,” he said. “Customers who don’t are the ones that will have issues. It’s great to hear that the warranty is available only for customers who follow best practices.”

Activating a warranty in the event of an attack is something no solution provider should have to experience, Thadani said.

“So we’ll work to make sure we implement all the best practices,” he said.

Also new is a “SWAT” team from Veeam that will respond within 30 minutes to a ransomware attack, Allan said. The company provided support in case of ransomware attacks, but this is the first time with a 30-minute response time, he said.

The Veeam Data Platform is available in three versions.

The “good” version is Veeam Backup and Replication Version 12, which has several hundred new capabilities beyond the previous version 11, Allan said.

The “better” version, Veeam Data Protection Advanced Edition, adds comprehensive monitoring and analytics capabilities to help identify and resolve issues before problems arise.

The “best” version, Veeam Data Protection Premium Edition, adds Veeam’s recovery orchestration technology to automate recovery after an attack. This version is also required to take advantage of Veeam’s ransomware warranty, Allan said.

Veeam is getting widespread storage vendor support for its new technology. The company’s new Smart Storage API is being used by such companies as Pure Storage, Scality, and Object First. Allan said over 80 storage vendors have had their APIs validated under the Veeam Ready program.

New York-based Vast Data Tuesday said it supports Veeam’s data immutability, instant recovery and operations, scalability enhancements, and direct-to-object backup, as well as Veeam’s universal API.

San Francisco-based Scality and Beverly, Mass.-based Object First Tuesday were the first two storage vendors to offer early integration with Veeam’s Smart Object Storage API, and Scality also supports Veeam’s new Direct to Object Storage.