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How STaas is Changing the Storage Story
Ben is a passionate advocate for innovation, who shares insights through writing and speaking, always focused on pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and championing impactful solutions.
At times, you want to listen to The Beatles, then Michael Jackson albums and a little of Adele, according to our moods, emotions etc. Audio streaming giants like Spotify have changed the way we tune in to music, by turning raw data into tailored experiences. In an email interaction with CIO Insider, Ben Young, Field CTO, APJ Veeam shed light on how STaaS (Storage as a Service) and cloud technologies are driving significant advancements in data security. Below are key insights from his perspective on these technologies are setting new benchmarks
Can you explain how STaaS and cloud technologies are driving advancements in data security, particularly in terms of prioritizing immutability as a key factor in ensuring data protection?
As cyber threats, particularly those targeting backup data, continue to rise, securing backup data has become more critical than ever. STaaS and cloud technologies are driving significant advancements in data security by focusing on essential features such as immutability.
A major advantage of STaaS is the reduction in infrastructure costs, as organizations no longer need to invest in and manage on-premises hardware. With a subscription model, businesses pay for storage as they grow, avoiding large upfront investments typical of traditional storage solutions. This makes it easier to align storage needs with future growth while reducing capital expenditures.
STaaS solutions like Veeam’s Data Cloud Vault offer businesses a more cost-effective approach by eliminating the need for managing on-premises hardware. With a subscription-based model, companies can align their storage needs with growth while avoiding large upfront investments and reducing infrastructure costs.
Immutability plays a crucial role in data protection. By ensuring that backup data cannot be altered or deleted once written, immutability helps safeguard against ransomware attacks and provides a strong defense for secure data recovery. Veeam’s Data Cloud Vault, built on Microsoft Azure, uses immutable, encrypted storage and follows zero trust principles, ensuring only authorized access. This makes recovery easier and more reliable, while predictable pricing and seamless integration with Veeam Data Platform provide a simple, affordable solution for long-term data security.
What are some of the reasons that enterprises need to bank on STaaS to power their growth during the era of increased cloud and edge computing, in your opinion?
In today’s era of increased cloud and edge computing, enterprises must turn to STaaS to fuel their growth due to its scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness. Solutions like Veeam Data Cloud Vault offer fully managed, scalable cloud storage that eliminates the complexities of managing on-premises infrastructure. Built on Microsoft Azure, Veeam Vault provides enterprises with secure offsite storage, offering immutability and encryption to protect against cyber threats, such as ransomware. This ensures data integrity and protection, while enabling rapid recovery from potential data loss events. As data needs evolve, enterprises can easily scale their storage requirements without the burden of managing physical infrastructure.
Moreover, STaaS provides enterprises with predictable pricing, eliminating the risk of unexpected cloud costs. Veeam Vault, for instance,
includes not only the storage component but also the necessary API calls for writing, reading, and recovering data in an immutable format, ensuring cost transparency. The solution integrates seamlessly with Veeam Data Platform, enabling businesses to focus on growth while maintaining strong data protection and recovery capabilities.
By ensuring that backup data cannot be altered or deleted once written, immutability helps safeguard against ransomware attacks and provides a strong defense for secure data recovery.
Despite the many benefits of cloud storage, such as simplified security and the ability to scale with growing data volumes, organizations continue to face significant challenges. One of the most concerning issues is managing infrastructure, accurately understanding and forecasting cloud storage costs, as unpredictable pricing models can create financial uncertainty. Additionally, achieving optimal efficiency in data management and backup processes remains a challenge for many, particularly when it comes to configuring and managing cloud storage effectively. The need for specialized expertise to navigate these complexities is another hurdle for organizations. As per Veeam 2024 ransomware trends, 96 percent of ransomware attacks explicitly target backups. With cyberthreats continuing to increase – especially against backup data – the need to appropriately secure backup data is paramount.
To address these challenges, Veeam has introduced its new secure cloud storage offering Veeam Data Cloud Vault which is built on Microsoft Azure and integrated into Veeam Backup & Replication, which brings the power of a predictably priced, infinitely scalable cloud storage target built on the principles of zero trust data resilience in partnership with Microsoft, integrating it with Azure Blob Cool Storage..
Being a leading market leader in Data Resilience, how is Veeam addressing these challenges with the Veeam Data Cloud Vault?
As a market leader in data resilience, Veeam recognizes the evolving challenges organizations face in cloud storage, including cost unpredictability, escalating cyber threats, and the complexities of managing and recovering critical data. Veeam Data Cloud Vault directly addresses these challenges, enabling businesses to confidently leverage the cloud for backup and disaster recovery while maintaining control. Veeam Data Cloud Vault ensures data is securely stored with features like air-gapping, immutability, and encryption by default wrapped up in a simple per terabyte pricing model. However, beyond simply offering secure and cost-predictable cloud storage, Veeam Data Cloud Vault is designed for rapid recovery and operational resilience. Its proximity to Azure compute unlocks new possibilities for on-demand resource provisioning, not just for disaster recovery, but also for critical tasks like clean room orchestration during a cyber event, such as a ransomware attack. This allows organizations to leverage their protected data in their Vault for a wider range of recovery and operational needs. Veeam Data Cloud Vault provides a comprehensive solution for secure and rapidly accessible cloud storage, giving organizations the confidence they need to protect their data and maintain business continuity all while removing the uncertainty around cloud costs through its predictable pricing model.
How does Veeam address these challenges with Veeam Data Cloud Vault:
• Security and Durability: With Zero Trust architecture, Veeam ensures data is immutable, encrypted, and air-gapped, offering up to 12 nines of durability to protect against data center failures and cyber threats. Veeam applies best-in-class security measures to protect organizations against cyber threats, particularly those targeting backup repositories.
• Predictability: Flat, per-TB pricing includes all fees, allowing organizations to easily predict and manage costs while benefiting from secure, cloud-based storage.
• Simplified: Fully managed, pre-configured cloud storage built on Azure, integrated with the Veeam Data Platform for easy provisioning, monitoring, and restores to both on-premises and Azure VMs.
• Rapid Recovery and Operational Resilience: The proximity to Azure compute and networking enables rapid data access for on-demand VMs, accelerating disaster recovery and critical operations like clean room orchestration during cyberattacks.
Can you explain how Veeam Data Cloud Vault's Zero Trust Data Resilience (ZDTR) approach strengthens organizations' data protection strategies, particularly in the context of defending against cyberthreats and ensuring backup integrity?
Veeam Data Cloud Vault's Zero Trust Data Resilience (ZDTR) approach enhances organizations' data protection strategies by extending Zero Trust principles to the backup environment. This approach is designed to defend against cyberthreats and ensure the integrity of backups. By following the 3-2-1-1-0 rule, which implies that by having three total copies of data, two different media, one copy offsite, one copy immutable, and zero errors, organizations can ensure their backups are secure and resilient. ZDTR strengthens this strategy by separating backup software from backup storage across different systems, making it significantly harder for cybercriminals to compromise both at the same time. This separation not only protects against potential data loss in the event that backup software is attacked but also reduces the overall attack surface by limiting access to segregated systems.
