*WARNING* – this is a techy blog. But we’re going to try and keep it as high level as you can when you’re talking about virtual backup solutions, which is exactly what we were doing when C5 attended VeeamOn in London last week.   For those who are unfamiliar with Veeam, put simply, they are a fully software-based virtual backup solution.  They are in fact the leading VMware provider in the world, supplying backup for 74% if the Fortune 500 companies, including organisations like Gatwick Airport, Facebook and Coca-Cola, to name just a few.  Customers like Veeam because it’s reliable, easy to deploy and 24.7.365 – they enable businesses to ensure that that are ‘always-on’.

Veeam Version 10…

Early next year Veeam will be launching Veeam Version 10 and the VeeamOn event was a chance for us to learn about the new developments, features and opportunities that this is going to present for our clients.   It was also a chance for major Veeam vendors and service providers (everyone from HPE, Microsoft and IBM were there) to talk about how they will be evolving what they offer as a result of these changes.   While there was a huge amount to learn at the event, our key ‘techy takeaways’ were as follows:

1. Built-in Management for Veeam Agent for Linux and Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows – this will reduce management complexity and improve usability through the direct integration of agent management, enabling users to manage virtual and physical infrastructures through the Veeam Backup & Replication console.
2. NAS Backup Support for SMB and NFS Shares – this will Maintain Availability through the expansion of Veeam’s protected data footprint with file-level backup support for Network Attached Storage (NAS) for SMB and NFS shares. Support includes scalable SMB/NFS backups, flexible data protection through short and long-term retention policies and out-of-place restore to easily restore SMB/NFS files to any target.
3. Scale-Out Backup Repository/Archive Tier – you will be able to save primary backup repository space and minimize costs while maintaining compliance with the addition of an archive tier for Scale-Out Backup Repository™. The new archive tier will deliver storage-agnostic support by enabling the archiving of backups to any storage or media, deliver backup data management by automatically moving the oldest backup files from primary storage to archive extents and provide broad cloud object storage support.
4. Veeam CDP (Continuous Data Protection) – this will enable the preservation of critical data during a disaster and ensure the Availability of tier-1 VMs with VMware-certified continuous data protection to reduce RPOs from minutes to seconds, as well as leverage VMware’s VAIO framework to reliably intercept and redirect VM I/O to the replica without a need to create standard VM snapshots.
5. Additional enterprise scalability enhancements – to save businesses valuable time and improve overall scalability, v10 will additionally feature several enterprise scalability enhancements including role-based access control to establish self-service backup and restore functionality for VMware workloads based on vCenter Server permissions and Oracle RMAN integration, allowing users to seamlessly stream RMAN backups into Veeam repositories and easily perform UI-driven restores from backups using a Veeam console.
6. Primary Storage Integrations/Universal Storage Integration API – this will Extend Availability and improve recovery time and point objectives (RTPO™) through primary storage integrations with leading storage providers through a universal plug-in framework enabling select partners to build integrations with Veeam Backup & Replication. New integrated storage solutions based on the API include IBM Spectrum Virtualize (IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and the IBM Storwize family), Lenovo Storage V Series and INFINIDAT.
7. DRaaS Enhancements (for service providers) – Service providers will be able to help tenants minimize costs and reduce recovery times during a disaster with new Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) enhancements including vCloud Director integration for Veeam Cloud Connect Replication and Tape as a Service (TaaS) for Veeam Cloud Connect Backups.

Also, GDPR…

Alongside the various updates about Veeam Version 10, the event also had a focus on GDPR, led by guest speaker James Castro-Edwards, Partner and Head of Data Protection for Wedlake Bell.   You can read a full blog from him on this subject here, but for us the most interesting points he made were around the current misconceptions and myths about GDPR.  He pointed out that the huge fines that everyone is worried about after May 2018 are not going to be aggressively handed out for no reason, and that a supportive but rigourous approach will be taken to encourage organisations to comply. He also talked about the comparisons between GDPR and the ‘Y2k bug hype’ saying that the perception that GDPR is a one-off, large event is not correct – organisations need to integrate GDPR compliance into their ongoing, regular, daily processes as part of a shift in culture.  This longer-term approach is how we are currently supporting our clients to implement their GDPR strategies.

Getting physical…

While there were a lot of interesting new developments to learn about, perhaps the most significant takeaway from the event was the clear intention of Veeam to begin supporting physical infrastructure and on premise boxes. For a solution that has always been purely online this is an important shift, to support hybrid solutions that will appeal to a whole new range of clients, who want to maintain their data physically, in-house, but also want to know they have the best cloud agnostic back-up for that data.  As the preferred partners of Veeam in the Channel Islands we will be talking with our clients to discuss how these new features and change could benefit them in the new year, but meanwhile if you would like learn more please email Jon.Bishop@c5alliance.com