Predictive analytics plays a pivotal role in bridging the data protection gap based on roaming attacks.

By checking the operating system consistency using APIs, snapshots and specific cloud agents, Veeam Software Corp. heightens data protection, according to Danny Allan (pictured), chief technology officer of Veeam.

“What we did is we captured a snapshot of the image at the hypervisor level, and then over time, we just leveraged Changed Block Tracking from the hypervisor to determine what had changed,” Allan stated. “We can use the API to capture all of the blocks of the data … we manage both the snapshot and backup, and we convert it into the Veeam portable data format because … I can move that OS anywhere. I can move it from physical to virtual or cloud.”

Allan spoke with theCUBE industry analysts Dave Vellante and David Nicholson at VeeamON, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed what it takes for Veeam to render optimal data protection. (* Disclosure below.)

Veeam ONE as a critical differentiator

As a hidden gem within the Veeam portfolio, Allan believes Veeam ONE helps address issues beforehand, because it has approximately 200 signatures.

“One of the things in Veeam ONE people don’t realize is that we have this concept of Veeam Intelligent Diagnostics; it’s machine learning, which we drive on our end and push out as packages into Veeam ONE,” he stated. “What determines the actions that we take is the context in which data is surviving. So in the context of security … we look for CPU utilization, memory utilization, and data change rate … we’re leveraging heuristics in the reporting.”

Despite not being able to access storage or the hypervisor in the cloud, Veeam uses specific agents for data protection purposes, according to Allan.

“What we’ve done to modern data protection is create specific cloud agents that say forget about the block changes, make sure that I have application consistency inside that cloud operating system,” he pointed out. “Even though you don’t have access to the hypervisor or the storage, you’re still getting the operating system consistency while getting the really fast capture of data.”

By housing the catalog inside the backup, Veeam takes data protection a notch higher, according to Allan.

“What’s interesting about our catalog is it’s inside the backup,” he explained. “Historically, one of the problems with backup is that you had a separate catalog, and if it ever got corrupted, all of your data was meaningless. Because the catalog is inside the backup for that unique VM or instance, you can move it anywhere and power it on.”

When it comes to the edge, Allan believes containers will take the driver’s seat.

“You’re going to see a lot of Arm at the edge, obviously, for power consumption purposes and different constructs for networking, but ultimately I think we’re going to see containers will lead the edge; we’re seeing this now,” he said. “On the edge, you can have a stateless environment and some persistent data storage. We not only provide portability in operating systems, but also do this for containers.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VeeamON event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the VeeamON event. Neither Veeam Software Corp., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE