VeeamON 2018: Beyond availability and data protection
CHICAGO – Veeam unveiled a copy data management feature at its VeeamON 2018 user conference Tuesday as part of its newly branded Hyper-Availability Platform.
Veeam DataLabs, part of the vendor’s flagship Availability Suite, allow organizations to create copies of production environments for uses beyond standard data protection. Those scenarios include test and development, DevOps and DevSecOps.
DataLabs is an element that has evolved over the past year, said Peter McKay, Veeam president and co-CEO.
“It’s a continuation of extending our platform for the enterprise,” McKay said at VeeamON. “Data is becoming more and more important. It’s the lifeblood of companies today.”
An organization can boot virtual machines from a backup or replica into a secure, isolated virtual environment. Veeam DataLabs expand on the functionality of Veeam’s Virtual Labs, enabling production-like instances of virtual environments. The feature replaces Veeam Virtual Labs.
Specifically, they help to ensure teams are developing and testing with the most recent data copies. Developers can spin up instances of the production environment as they design new features. The DataLabs provide sandbox environments to test new patches and updates. The copies also enable testing of security vulnerabilities without disrupting production systems.
In addition, an organization can examine and classify data, which helps comply with regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation.
More than ‘always on’
Veeam DataLabs is one piece of how the vendor is expanding its data management functionality.
Veeam laid the groundwork at VeeamON 2018 for its strategy and vision of what it’s calling the “Hyper-Availability Platform for Intelligent Data Management,” a shift from its recent “Availability for the Always-On Enterprise” platform.
Hyper-availability is more than availability and being always on; it’s enabling artificial intelligence and being able to move data fluidly across a multi-cloud environment, said Danny Allan, vice president of product strategy.
Veeam executives noted the difficulties that organizations are having with their data management. Not only is the volume of data increasing exponentially, it’s also often on multiple platforms, in multiple locations.
Combining AI and automation will drive the most innovate disruptions of the next decade, Allan said. Veeam is building intelligence into its platform, but didn’t provide specifics Tuesday at VeeamON.
“Leveraging intelligence for better data outcomes is where we need to go as an industry,” Allan said.
Veeam recently reached 300,000 customers and claims to be growing by 4,000 per month.