What’s data backup and protection have to do with data availability? Infrastructure planning? Developer operations? Everything now that data is becoming central to the whole information technology operation. So companies had better start packaging backup and protection into early-stage planning for all of those things, according to Stefan Renner (pictured, right), technical director of global alliances at Veeam Software Inc.

Companies have to throw out the idea that protection is something they bolt on top of all their other “crucial” infrastructure and applications as a luxury. Rather, data protection — especially the type with strong data-availability features — is critical now that business can’t survive a second without data, according to Renner.

Renner and Chris O’Brien (pictured, left), technical marketing director at Cisco Systems Inc., spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the VMworld conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed Veeam’s partnership with Cisco and the evolving role of data protection. (* Disclosure below.)

Availability is gold in data-driven enterprise

“Make sure you include data protection immediately, like, on day one of your project,” Renner said.

Companies who don’t heed this advice may discover too late how sorely they need data backup and availability. “They tell me, ‘Oh, I replaced all my infrastructure the last six months, eight months, and now I want to do data protection,'” he said. “Then I get in and I say, ‘Yeah, unfortunately, what you did on your infrastructure is completely wrong for the expectations and the requirements you have on data protection.'”

Clicking data protection together with infrastructure from the get-go can pay-off in a number of ways, Renner explained.

Veeam and Cisco teamed up a couple of years back to engineer validated designs that integrate Veeam protection and availability technology into Cisco’s UCS-based HyperFlex hyperconverged infrastructure. “What we’re doing with Veeam is really tweaking that infrastructure to make that data available when it’s called on, so you can consume it as a developer as part of the DevOps team,” O’Brien said.

Veeam grew its business largely with mid-range companies and SMBs. However, the recently-announced Veamm Availability Orchestrator — an orchestration layer that provides full failover capabilities — is speeding up the company’s trek into enterprises, according to Renner.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VMworld conference. (* Disclosure: Cisco Systems Inc. sponsored this segment, with additional broadcast sponsorship from VMware Inc. Cisco, VMware, and other sponsors do not have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE