Digital transformation has companies everywhere reassessing their relationship to data backup and protection. They’re asking hard questions like: Can you recover data at the pace of modern digital business? Do you work seamlessly across multiple on-premises and cloud environments? Can you do more than just sit there 99 percent of the time?

“Industry data suggests that over half of the customers that you talk to are rethinking their backup strategies because of digital transformation,” said Dave Vellante (@dvellante), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio.

Pain-in-the-neck multicloud logistics and warp-speed recovery time needed to compete in digital business are among the catalysts. The basic physical reality of hauling data round is, as ever, a main issue data protection vendors must address. These are two main fronts on which data-protection incumbents will battle for suddenly choosy customers. 

Vellante kicked around the new backup and protection playing field in a special analysis during the Veritas Vision Solution Day event in New York City. He discussed the features customers are seeking and how startups and incumbents plan to deliver them. (* Disclosure below.)

Where the new backup and recovery money is

VC money is pouring into data-protection startups promising to bring a simple, agile cloud experience to the data wherever it resides. This is sensible, since it’s both cumbersome and expensive to shove all data into the cloud, according to Vellante. 

Other factors are recovery point objective and recovery time objective. How much data do businesses want to lose in the event of a disaster? The answer is always none, until they see what that level of protection would cost.

“At the same time, digital transformation is pushing them to get as close to zero as possible without breaking the bank,” Vellante said. Vendors that deliver the best price-to-performance ratio will have a huge selling point going for them.

Speaking of price, does data protection pull its weight when it’s not in use? A lot of vendors and customers are asking more of the corpus of data and their backup infrastructure with machine learning and artificial intelligence. Possible uses include preventing cyber attacks, predictive maintenance, and complying with laws like the General Data Protection Regulation, which affects any business with European operations.

While incumbents have the advantage of a large install base, startups are starting with a blank slate, Vellante pointed out. Check out theCUBE’s interviews with customers during Veritas Vision Solution Day to hear why they are sticking with their incumbent providers or moving on to startups.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Veritas Vision Solution Day event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Veritas Vision Solution Day. Neither Veritas Technologies LLC, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: Veritas Tech Events