Veeam Software hosted 175+ registered attendees, customers, partners and industry experts at its VeeamON Tour in Dubai 2021. The event was designed to connect leading IT experts and visionaries throughout the region to share and learn about the hottest topics in the market, including data protection, ransomware, native cloud and Kubernetes.
Claude Schuck, Regional Director, Middle East at Veeam who presented the keynote address entitled ‘Embracing the Future of Modern Data Protection with Veeam’ said, “When we talk about Modern Data Protection, we focus on three areas – cloud, containers and security. Migration of data remains the #1 barrier in cloud adoption.
“Veeam eases the barriers associated with adopting the cloud by providing portability, protection, and simple licensing of workloads. When it comes to containers, current Kubernetes data management tools require extensive expertise and set up time when first deployed, and lack process automation for managing, monitoring, and troubleshooting.”
He added that Kasten by Veeam is the leader in Kubernetes backup and disaster recovery. It simplifies data protection, backup and disaster recovery, and application mobility in Kubernetes environments, for a smoother out of the box experience.
“And the final pillar of the Modern Data Protection strategy is security. A company’s data is its most valuable asset. Managing, protecting and meeting data security regulations are monumental tasks. With Veeam, you can implement transparent, actionable and dependable strategies to protect your data from tampering or deletion with secure, verifiable backup options.”
The technical session delivered on Cybersecurity and Orchestration provided insights on navigating the ‘new normal’ and highlighted the need for disaster recovery in the face of sophisticated cyberthreats like ransomware. The damage ransomware can inflict on businesses is staggering. For businesses who feel they have no choice but to pay cybercriminals in order to unlock their files, they not only put their money at risk (as there is no guarantee their data will be returned), but also put their reputation at stake. Cybersecurity and an insurance policy against data breaches should be a top priority.
Regional Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) need to have a stringent security plan in place which includes important elements like stress testing of IT Systems, backup, a disaster recovery plan and educating employees. For IT departments, DR planning may not be the most glamorous and lucrative task, but it is not one which should be bypassed or treated as a box-ticking exercise. A good disaster recovery strategy should encompass a clearly documented process that has been tested. DR testing needs to be stringent – looking at every possible eventuality and preparing an appropriate response. While this can be a cost-intensive exercise in terms of resource, for businesses that view more and more of their apps as business-critical, the return on this investment will be realised when disaster strikes.
The Veeam 2021 Data Protection Report reported that 70% of organisations in the Middle East recognized that they have an “Availability Gap” between how fast they can recover applications versus how fast they need applications to be recovered. 68% of those same organizations said they have a “Protection Gap” between how frequently data is backed up versus how much data they can afford to lose. In the first months of the pandemic, 94% of organisations increased their cloud services usage (43%) significantly. This came from remote workers using SaaS-based collaboration services and the increased challenge for IT to maintain on-prem, physical operations. As a result of this, there will be more endpoints to protect.
There continues to be a misperception that even with legacy data protection, the basics are still covered — the backup and recovery of essential data and applications. This could not be further from the truth. With current legacy backup, there remains a lack of core functionality to provide backup and recovery capabilities. On average, 31% of the time, organizations showed that their backup jobs ended up with errors or could not complete in their allocated backup window. That means potentially nearly one-third of all backups may not be restorable. The research also showed that over one-quarter (26%) of all restorations fail to restore within the expected SLA.
The need for modern data protection now feels more pressing than ever with the acceleration of cloud and modern delivery practices and the reality of backup and restoration issues with legacy backup. Modern data protection can provide new levels of confidence and operational excellence, ensuring data is always protected and available, as well as many other economic and productivity benefits.
