VeeamOn 2024 thrives on data resilience, backups and ransomware prevention

Veeam Software, a data protection and backup company headquartered in the United States, unveiled several new services for backup data, forged partnerships, and presented a comprehensive report on the prevalence of ransomware at its annual VeeamOn event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The event took place from June 3-5, 2024. Here's a roundup of the event.

Data resilience is the key

The event primarily emphasized the importance of data resilience and being prepared for ransomware attacks. Data resilience is a system or organization's ability to withstand and recover from data-related disruptions or failures.

Studies have shown that even the most well-prepared organizations struggle to recover their data after a ransomware attack. Veeam has recognized these areas as crucial and will continue to invest in them.

During the keynote, Veeam CEO Anand Eswaran specifically focused on cyber resilience and the need for preparedness and prevention against ransomware.

He also interviewed customers on stage, sharing their experiences with ransomware attacks and other adversities and how Veeam assisted them in recovering from such incidents. Eswaran's key message was that backup and recovery are evolving into cyber recovery, emphasizing the significance of building a cyber-resilient infrastructure.

Eswaran also spoke about the recent acquisition of Coveware, a provider of cyber-extortion incident response and mentioned how the acquisition further strengthens Veeam’s ransomware recovery and first-responder capabilities, enhancing its radical resilience solutions for customers.

Launch of Azure-based storage service to secure data

At the company's VeeamON 2024 conference, the company announced its new Veeam Data Cloud Vault - a Microsoft Azure-based storage service that helps users securely store backup data. The service is designed to provide additional layers of protection for critical information.

According to Eswaran, “Storing a backup of your data offsite is an essential part of any backup strategy and it’s critical to rapid, clean recovery from an outage or a cyber-attack. The Data Cloud Vault meets this demand of enterprises by delivering an added level of data protection, cyber resilience, compliance adherence, faster recovery, and prevention against insider threats. These factors collectively contribute to strengthening the overall security posture of organizations without breaking the bank.”

The new offering offers a pre-configured and fully managed cloud storage solution on Azure, addressing challenges faced by both enterprises and small/medium-sized businesses, the company said. Instead of handling their own cloud infrastructure, organizations can use Veeam Vault for secure data storage, management and access.

Phil Goodwin, research vice president, IDC. “Storing data offsite in an air gapped, immutable, encrypted vault can provide this data survival and integrity certainty. Veeam Data Cloud Vault enhances Veeam’s cyber recovery capabilities using Storage as-a-service (STaaS) delivery. Based on zero trust principles, Veeam Vault can give customers an easy-to-use cloud vaulting option fully wrapped in Veeam services.”

The pricing includes not only storage but also API calls for writing and reading data. Users can access the service through Veeam's software interface and easily scale storage as needed, benefiting from reliability and disaster recovery capabilities.

Debut of Ransomware trends report 2024

As ransomware remains a significant threat for organizations, as it is the largest single cause of IT outages and downtime, according to Veeam's 2024 Ransomware Trends Report. The software company found that 41% of data is compromised during cyberattacks and that only 57% of that affected data is recoverable. That leaves several enterprises reeling due to a lack of data after an attack.

Further, the report noted the lack of coordination between security and backup teams is creating increased vulnerability that cyber criminals are exploiting through ransomware and other advanced attacks. According to report, close to two-thirds (63%) of organisations find their backup and cyber teams lacking synchronisation.

Read more: Gap between security, backup teams leads to ransomware, other advanced cyber attacks 

Dave Russell, Senior Vice President, Head of Strategy at Veeam, said at the launch, the report delivers a clear message: ransomware attacks will continue, be more severe than predicted, and the overall impact will cost organisations more than they expect. "Organisations must take action to ensure cyber resiliency and acknowledge that rapid, clean recovery matters most. By aligning teams and bolstering cybersecurity with immutable backups, they can protect their valuable business data while Veeam keeps their business running and secure," he recommends.

Lenovo, Veeam offer TruScale Backup service

Veeam Software teamed up with tech company Lenovo to announce the availability of Lenovo TruScale Backup with Veeam, a cloud-like experience on-premises that helps secure workloads regardless of their location and enables customers to scale infrastructure up or down as needed.

TruScale Backup with Veeam combines Lenovo ThinkSystem servers and storage, Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam ONE, and Lenovo TruScale services to provide data protection as a service for a hassle free on-premises or co-located deployment. This helps customers reduce recovery time, simplify IT complexity, and maintain data sovereignty.

John Jester, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Veeam said that TruScale Backup with Veeam brings them simplicity, not only in reducing IT complexity, but also helps ensure their data is protected and under their governance no matter where it is located. That said CIOs can spend their time focused on running their business.

Christophe Bertrand, Principal Analyst, theCUBE Research believes that as CIOs struggle with integration challenges between the various layers of their data protection systems. "The partnership brings the best of both worlds for delivering orchestrated recoverability of data assets at scale in an integrated solution.”

(The author was invited to attend VeeamOn 2024 at Fort Lauderdale, Florida)