Veeam Backup & Replication v12 focuses on security, cloud
At the first in-person VeeamON since 2019, Veeam reveals updates to its Backup & Replication and Microsoft 365 protection products. Backup for Salesforce is also on the horizon.
Veeam Software is increasing immutable options and strengthening container integration in its flagship data protection platform.
Veeam Backup & Replication v12 will include "immutability everywhere" and a plugin for Kasten by Veeam's Kubernetes data protection platform, the vendor announced Wednesday at its annual VeeamON user conference, held both in person in Las Vegas and virtually. Version 12, due in the second half of 2022, also features more continuous data protection (CDP) options within disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS).
"We must treat, we must secure, we must protect our data as if our businesses and our lives depend on it. Because honestly, it really does," Veeam CEO Anand Eswaran said during the opening keynote Tuesday. "And that principle is at the heart of what Veeam has always been about. Our mission is to help you secure, own, control, back up and recover your data anywhere in the hybrid cloud."
The mixing of backup and security was an overarching theme at the conference. Veeam CTO Danny Allan called ransomware protection a major focus for the vendor.
Danny Allan
"That's simply because of the number of ransomware attacks that are happening," Allan said.
The "immutability everywhere" in Veeam Backup & Replication v12 provides more control and protection for faster ransomware recovery. Users can make every backup copy immutable, whether it is in the Veeam Hardened Repository, on on-premises or cloud object storage, or through other options such as with service providers, said Rick Vanover, senior director of product strategy at Veeam.
We must treat, we must secure, we must protect our data as if our businesses and our lives depend on it. Because honestly, it really does.
Anand EswaranCEO, Veeam
"We feel that the only true way to keep backups safe from attack, after they've been created, is to ensure that they are immutable," said Billy Cashwell, senior manager of product marketing at Veeam.
Veeam Backup & Replication v12 also helps with triggering a quick response following an attack because it alerts users to questionable activity, notes the affected files and recommends that it's time for recovery, Cashwell said.
Krista Macomber
The expanded immutability is a key security feature, said Krista Macomber, senior analyst at Evaluator Group.
"For Veeam, I think it's about ensuring that all data is protected to the RPOs and RTOs needed, making it harder for bad actors to steal or tamper with data," Macomber said. "I think we'll see more emphasis on using Veeam's visibility into the estate of backup data for these purposes."
The Veeam Backup & Replication plugin for Kasten's K10 v5.0, the latest version of the platform unveiled this week, provides centralized visibility and management of Kubernetes data protection.
The plugin brings cloud-native backups into the Veeam Backup & Replication console, Vanover said. Users can have visibility of the backups and exports of Kubernetes clusters in Veeam Backup & Replication.
"In a single management console, you can manage every single physical system that Veeam can protect, every single cloud that Veeam can protect, and also all the Kubernetes clusters and nodes," Allan said. "Why do you need that? Because when you go to the board, and you say, 'I am compliant and secure' -- this gives you the proof of that."
Veeam Backup & Replication v12 enhances DRaaS. Service providers can use Veeam's CDP for uses such as VMware Cloud Director and Veeam Cloud Connect, Vanover said. Veeam's CDP previously only supported VMware vCenter targets.
"Version 12 will make the barrier of entry much easier for Veeam Cloud & Service Providers to offer CDP for their customers," Vanover said.
Macomber said she's interested to see how the DRaaS will increase the accessibility of DR for more customers and workloads.
"The expense and hassle of buying, deploying and managing a separate infrastructure for DR has made it cost-prohibitive for some customers and some use cases, in the past," Macomber said. "Using the cloud can possibly help to overcome this hurdle."
Veeam Backup & Replication v12 also enables users to write any backup directly to object storage.
"Object storage is the way," Cashwell said. "It's the way of the future."
As a repository for data historically, object storage has been challenging, according to Allan.
"The performance hasn't been there," Allan said. "But we're actually seeing the reliability, the resiliency, the availability and the performance of object storage."
Veeam claims 850,000 downloads of Backup & Replication v11, which included continuous data protection and immutable backups in Linux repositories. The vendor also claims 450,000 customers.
Expanded SaaS backup coming soon
At the conference, executives also talked up Version 7 of Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, due later this year, saying it will feature monitoring and reporting. The capabilities are the result of an integration with the Veeam One monitoring and reporting tool. The product will provide real-time alerts to resolve data vulnerabilities.
"Not only do we want to protect the Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams data, but we want to do it securely," Allan said.
Veeam claims 11 million users of its Backup for Microsoft 365.
Veeam Backup for Salesforce, detailed at the show, is also getting closer to release. Due in 2022, the product is Veeam's second for protection of a SaaS platform, following Microsoft 365.
The product offers Salesforce-native backup and recovery. It's purpose-built for Salesforce, using native APIs. Users can restore records, hierarchies, fields, files and metadata.
"This is based off our own experience [with Salesforce]," Allan said. "We needed a product to protect there."
Danny Allan
Krista Macomber
