When Veeam Software Corp. reported its quarterly earnings in May, the backup software provider cited “major success” in market adoption of subscription offerings that included Veeam Universal License.

With a reported 97% year-over-year increase in bookings, Veeam’s licensing strategy is proving to be a key tailwind for a firm, which has trademarked “It just works” as its slogan.

“The idea was it just works; it should be simple and easy to use,” said Justin Warren, chief analyst and managing director of PivotNine Pty. Ltd. “It’s completely on brand for Veeam to have a simple and easy-to-use licensing model. It does simplify the way they organize and operate their company as they have to deal with lots of different partners, and this way it actually works for Veeam as well as their customers.”

Warren spoke with Dave Vellante and Stu Miniman, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during their keynote analysis of the VeeamOn virtual event this week. They discussed Veeam’s growing partnership with VMware Inc., the company’s move into cloud data management, security enhancements for its platform and the firm’s recent acquisition by a major private-equity firm. (* Disclosure below.)

Expanding partnerships

In addition to revenue from its licensing model, Veeam has also experienced growth in its partner channel this year. The company relaunched its partner training program early in 2020 and certifications have soared, according to one company executive last month.

However, it is a partnership with VMware, formed not long after Veeam’s founding in 2006, that has paid dividends over the past two decades.

“One of the things we see loud and clear at this show is that the VMware relationship is really strong,” Miniman said. “And as VMware goes to various cloud environments; Veeam can go along with that. It’s a company that hasn’t stayed still.”

In January of last year, Veeam announced the general availability of its cloud data management capabilities as part of a suite of offerings for Microsoft Azure Stack and Amazon Web Services Inc. Cost-effective data retention and easier cloud migration and cloud-native backup were part of the new services unveiled.

“The vision from its CEO is to be the most trusted provider of backup solutions that deliver cloud data management,” Vellante said. “He’s putting forth this back-to-basics mentality but then leapfrogging the data management narrative into the cloud.”

Bolstering security

Veeam has also been active in enhancing its product portfolio to include protection against ransomware attacks that have plagued enterprises around the globe. In February, Cloudian Inc. announced a collaborative solution with Veeam that enabled customers to make backup data copies invulnerable to hacker encryption or deletion in the event of a ransomware attack.

“I’m seeing a change in mindset from prevention to resilience,” Warren said. “People are understanding that sooner or later bad things are going to happen. Having a really solid backup that you can restore quickly is the best protection against ransomware that you can have.”

Veeam was acquired by Insight Partners in March for $5 billion. Despite global uncertainty around the coronavirus pandemic, Insight raised $9.5 billion in April for its newest and largest private equity fund.

“Insight is one of the more forward-thinking venture capital firms,” Vellante noted. “Veeam actually has quite a presence in large companies, and it seems to me they really have an opportunity to go up-market, maybe to reset that enterprise strategy.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of VeeamOn. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VeeamOn. Neither Veeam, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Veeam