Rubrik customers can now integrate their backup data into AWS Bedrock and Azure OpenAI with the new Annapurna API service. The vendor is also expanding its backup services for AWS.
Rubrik's platform will soon offer more AWS native capabilities and an API service for generative AI application development.
The Rubrik Annapurna API service connects customer data stores within the Rubrik platform to foundation models available in Microsoft Azure OpenAI or Amazon Bedrock generative AI services.
Headlining the AWS native Rubrik services is the Rubrik Cloud Vault, a vendor-managed and air-gapped data vault service operating within AWS. Rubrik introduced its new API and cloud services, which will launch by early 2025, alongside this week's AWS re:Invent 2024.
Rubrik, a cybersecurity and data backup vendor, has historically operated services within Azure, which directly competes with AWS for enterprise business, according to Krista Case, an analyst at The Futurum Group. Although these two cloud titans might continue to face off, many of their customers are operating across clouds to ensure data availability and access to a variety of services, she said.
Third-party vendors such as Rubrik and Commvault, both of which received financial backing from Microsoft, will follow that customer movement and demand, she said.
"Customers are now using multiple cloud environments, and they want that flexibility," Case said.
Generative AI climb
When the Rubrik Annapurna API service connects to Azure or AWS, it maintains customer-dictated security and privacy settings to ensure that data fed into foundation models meets privacy and business requirements.
Foundation models, a form of generative AI, generate a variety of media and can ingest data types beyond text such as video and images.
The challenge of using such models for app development is ensuring that junk data, personally identifiable information or corporate data isn't used, as doing so could expose an enterprise to liability, said Arvind Nithrakashyap, Rubrik co-founder and CTO.
Annapurna aims to bridge that policy gap among cybersecurity, development and infrastructure teams through the Rubrik platform, he said. The API service uses the same policies that safeguard backups and are configured by cybersecurity or data teams so that developers can quickly apply these guardrails when drawing from Rubik data through the API, Nithrakashyap said.
"These are policies they've created, but they now can apply to generative AI app development use cases as well," he said.
You need to have someone knowledgeable driving the tools.
Jerome WendtCEO and principal analyst, Data Center Intelligence Group
Customers interested in adopting the API service will still likely need human intervention to test the output of models to avoid hallucinations or other issues, according to Jerome Wendt, CEO and principal analyst at Data Center Intelligence Group.
"You need to have someone knowledgeable driving the tools," he said. "I see this [as a way] to get you to that higher level of certainty that the data is reliable."
Rubrik Annapurna will launch in early 2025 following user testing, Nithrakashyap said. Specific pricing and offerings for the API have yet to be determined.
Expanded AWS offerings
The forthcoming Rubrik Cloud Vault on AWS will bring all the features and capabilities of the existing Rubrik Cloud Vault, normally a service operating in Azure, to AWS.
The vault service, which is managed by Rubrik, enables customers to create an air-gapped vault of backup data within AWS as a way to recover from disasters or cyberattacks, according to the vendor.
Having the service within AWS means customers can avoid data transfer costs into or out of AWS compared with the Azure vault service, Nithrakashyap said.
A handful of other AWS native services are set for the platform, including Anomaly Detection, Threat Monitoring, Threat Hunting and Data Discovery and Classification.
Anomaly Detection uses machine learning to detect deletions, modifications and encryptions of data within the AWS. Threat Monitoring alerts users to changes in backup snapshots. Threat Hunting identifies the original point of infection and provides a list of ideal snapshots for recovery. Data Discovery and Classification finds and flags data marked as sensitive by an organization to avoid exposure.
Anomaly Detection is currently available for all AWS Rubrik customers. Rubrik Cloud Vault, Threat Monitoring, Threat Hunting, and Data Discovery and Classification are expected to launch in 2025.
Tim McCarthy is a news writer for TechTarget Editorial covering cloud and data storage.
