>> Announcer: From around the globe,
it's theCUBE
with digital coverage of VeeamON 2020.
Brought to you by Veeam.
>> Welcome back. I'm Stu Miniman
and this is theCUBE's coverage of
VeeamON 2020 online this year.
We've done the event for many years
and we're now able to
reach the Veeam executives,
some of their partners
and the like.
Where they are around the globe.
Really excited to be able to dig in.
We're going to talk
some number and analysis
and to help me do that
I've got two Veeam CUBE alumni.
We'd had them on theCUBE
before they were on Veeam.
Always excited to get back at them
and dig into the numbers with them
now that they are at Veeam.
Dave Russell is the vice president
of Enterprise Strategy
and Jason Buffington is the vice president
of Solutions Strategy,
both with Veeam.
Gentlemen thanks so much for joining us.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks for having us.
>> All right. First, I
guess let let me ask,
how are you guys doing?
We were having a little bit of discussion
before we came on here as to you know
everyone is now inundated with data
and numbers and the like
with this global pandemic.
Dave, how are things doing
in your neck of the woods
and then we'll go to Jason.
>> Yeah. Well, literally
cannot complain personally.
Veeam itself is doing incredibly well
as an organization,
we'll double click on that here.
But in terms of data
particularly as it relates
to this space that we're in,
backup and recovery availability
and Cloud data management.
The recent data for first half 2020
is actually fascinating
and we're going to double click on that
a little bit more right, Jason?
>> We are. Now, as far as how we're doing,
I've been at every VeeamON that we've had.
The first three as an analyst,
the last two as a VP.
I've never gotten to do one
in my pajama bottoms though.
So that's kind of a nice change
just to kind of mix it up a little bit.
But yeah, the other thing
which has been kind of fun is that
because we haven't been traveling
it really gave Dave and I a chance
to kind of get back to
our roots a little bit
and really dig in to research
and how do you apply research
to product direction
and go to market.
And so it's been a fun project
that we're culminating with VeeamON.
>> Yeah. Jason, please
don't be giving out secrets.
I'm not not saying
if you look up Dave
along his Twitter handle
that you'll find the suit on the top,
shorts on the bottom look,
what I refer to as keep casual
for when you're doing
some of these remote events.
But you do have a breakout
that you're doing really looking at,
digital transformation
and IT modernization.
Digital transformation,
I'm sure both of you from
the analyst standpoint,
for a while it was a bit of a buzzword.
Today, just with the backdrop
of the global pandemic
it's like, well,
if you had the chance
to go through the digital transformation,
hopefully you get things put to the test.
You're relying on data.
You should be more agile
and those are all things that I think help
the remote workforce
in what they're doing.
But if you hadn't finish that
or you either started
or in the middle of that journey,
a big question is,
what are you doing?
Will this accelerate it?
Will it slow it down?
So excited to dig into your CxO research.
Why don't you give us
a little bit of the background?
How long is this going on?
Who you're talking to
as part of this this research?
>> Sure. Well, as far as
the research itself goes,
so Veeam went to an
outside panel and said,
"Hey, don't tell anybody who it's from
"but we need you to interview
"these kinds of personas
"and these kinds of folks."
We did 1,550 enterprises
and by that definition
meaning 1,000 users end up
across 18 different
countries around the world.
And then we even asked
some questions around
not only what country are you in
but in what countries do you influence
data protection strategy and architecture.
Everyone from IT architects
all the way through CxOs
were part of that survey
and we got some great data back
not only from an executive perspective of
what are the expectations of IT?
But also from the IT implement
or IT architects perspective on
what are their real world challenges today
and that's some of the things
that we were at Veeam really keen
to understand more to make sure
that we're building the right things
and saying the right
things for our customers
and our prospects.
>> Excellent, and Dave maybe give us
a little bit of a backdrop.
When I think about enterprises,
we all talk about these mega waves.
The things I talk about is you know
when I talk to the CxO suite,
it's not that they have,
"Well, you know,
"I've got a multicloud strategy."
But, "No, I'm figuring out
"how Cloud changes what I'm doing."
Digital transformation
is one of those things
that brings together the business
and the IT
and hopefully something I know
we've all been talking about
for quite a long time.
IT just can't be a separate thing
or a cost center
but needs to really
respond to the business.
What's that backdrop of
digital transformation
and bring us inside a little bit
what your learnings were?
>> Yeah. To me I think,
I like the notion of
digital transformation
because it's very
specific to every business
maybe even every business unit
meaning it's not a case
of a vendor saying,
here's what your project should be.
Rather it's more a notion of
whatever initiative you have
to try to increase customer intimacy
to be able to contain costs,
expand your reach,
that's really what digital transformation
is here to support.
>> Excellent. And Jason,
give us a little bit of color as you know,
say some of the finding.
>> Yeah. So I mean,
I think the big ones that we looked at
were what were the major IT challenges
you had overall.
And maybe not to so much of a surprise
but staffing and legacy infrastructure
were still some of the biggest things
that were holding back IT organizations
which I think is especially interesting
in the landscape that we're in right now
because your staff can't be in the places
where they used to be
and from a legacy perspective,
Stu, I know you love data
as much as we do.
If organizations are spending between
68 and 82% of their money
and their dollars on the status quo
that doesn't leave a whole lot left
for the things that you'd like to do
like improving customer experience,
like accelerating the
employees of your business.
So things like digital transformation
tend to get hindered by the same stuff
that hinders IT modernization
and just give away the buzzword,
just trying to do better in IT
for the sake of the business
but really those have
been kind of the big gaps.
>> Yeah, and I think Jason hit
a key point there, Stu,
of the issue right now
is a lot of us
are just trying to run the business,
like literally keep the lights on.
Jason mentioned the stats
of high 60s low 70s.
Just trying to keep status quo.
But digital transformation
in my mind is about
obviously trying to run the business
while you're seeking to grow the business
and aspirationally hoping
to transform your business
to really improve customer intimacy
and success of end customers
as well as partners.
So if done right,
pursuing digital
transformation can help you
with tactical needs
as well as strategic outcome.
>> Yeah. It's a little sad,
I think from an industry standpoint,
you're talking about how much money
and time is spent on
keeping the lights on.
I feel like 10-15 years ago,
it was the 80-85% if you're saying,
oh, we've whittled away a little bit.
It's now in the low 70s,
some really good companies,
it's getting to 60%
but we haven't flipped things yet.
I'm curious you know,
you have this position.
They don't know that it
was sponsored by Veeam.
So how do Cloud as a general technology
and then data protection
and availability specifically
fit into the overall priorities
for that IT modernization?
>> So there were two questions
that we really focused on,
they are are my two favorite slides
in the whole deck.
The first one that I thought
was really interesting is
when we asked organizations,
what does modern data protection
look like or innovative?
And I think we used
a few different buzzwords along the way.
And we asked them,
check all of these capabilities
that might apply
and then which one is the most definitive.
And we actually got two
different sets of answers
depending on how you pivot that data.
If you ask most common responses,
modern data protection looks Cloudy
and what I mean by that is that
the top choices scored were
the ability to do DR as a service.
The ability to integrate
on-premise and Cloud-based
as part of your data
protection architecture
and then the ability to move data
from one Cloud to another
which certainly reinforces the fact that
we are not only in a hybrid world
but in a multi hybrid world as well.
So if you're looking
for most common answers,
modern data protection looks Cloudy
but if you flip it over and you say,
what is the most definitive feature?
You actually get something very different.
You find out that the ability
to leverage orchestration and workflow,
the ability to manage via APIs
and systems management,
the ability to be part of
a cybersecurity strategy.
So what you see is that
modern data protection in
general has to be Cloudy
but more importantly,
backup should not sit
on an island of its own.
It should be
a cohesive part of a broader IT experience
that's managed by something broader,
that's part of the provisioning
and systems framework.
So those two answers kind of tell us
what should we not only be making sure
that we're continuing to build on
but also making sure
that we're communicating
as far as does Veeam meet the bar
for what organizations are looking for
in a modern or innovative
data protection strategy.
>> Yeah, that's really interesting.
I guess one of the big things
I've seen over the last 12 to 18 months
is maturation of things
like a real hybrid strategy.
So if I look at Veeam,
the most critical
partnerships of course are
VMware from a historical standpoint
and things like Microsoft going forward
and both of them have made big strides
over the last couple of years
as to not just you know,
on-premises versus public Cloud
but how do all of these
things work together.
The discussions that
we've been having about
Cloud is not necessarily a destination
but it's more of an operating model
and as people build out
their architectures.
All the things you mentioned there,
it's not a place or a destination
but it's more of that architectural view
and can live across
lots of different environments.
Does that make sense?
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah it's a cross.
It's a horizontal play really.
It's not moving from point A to point B,
it's really embracing expanded choices.
So what we found when
we did this survey is
directionally where
organizations are at the day
with on-prem physical,
on-prem virtual,
going towards Cloud
and then how they responded,
their intentions two years later.
There weren't major surprises there
meaning the shift was increasingly
more towards Cloud.
But it also wasn't a case that
on-prem physical goes to zero.
So anymore than it's a case
of an organization goes
100% all in on one hyperscale
or public Cloud provider.
So it's really about supporting the mix
and it's about offering choice
because every business
or maybe more specifically,
every workload within a business
might have their own natural migration
associated with what they need to do,
what's appropriate given
their business realities
and their desires.
So if we double click on
what's really important from backup,
the number one thing that came back
from our global survey,
it's a little incriminating
and the state of the industry was,
the number one thing that would make us
want to change our backer provider
is so that the application would backup.
That is an amazingly shocking statement.
That's like saying,
"Stu, if you were to
change cars, automobiles,
"what would you look
for first and foremost?"
And your response is,
"An automobile that's started."
>> Yeah.
>> That is really scary, in 2020.
So Dave and I have each been in backup
almost exclusively for 30 years each.
And Stu, you shouldn't
be able to spell backup
for almost the same length of time
and we've been doing this
a really long time.
And in 2020,
when IT pros were asked
what would get them to change,
it's they'd like it to work
the way they thought it would
when they bought it.
I mean, that's just a
really damning statement.
And then beyond that then the next driver
certainly economics came into play.
So the number two answers were,
reducing hardware and software costs
and improving TCO and ROI
were two and three
and then capabilities around
improving RPO, RTO, SLAs,
and then ease of use.
I mean, that kind of
rounds out the top five
with Cloud coming in right behind that.
So not a whole lot of surprise there
but what a terrible
statement for the industry
that we just like it to work.
>> All right. How about some good news?
What recommendations or guidance,
is there anything that you got out of it
that best practices
or leaders in the space
or what peers would recommend
to each other?
>> So I think the two
things that I took away
that I thought was really interesting
from a best practices and moving forward,
data reuse scored really really high.
So the interest in leveraging
and the survey actually asked
several different scenarios
for what folks were either doing
or aspiring to do around data use.
And you can call it copy data management.
You can call it secondary
storage use cases.
You can pick whatever
marketing buzzword you want
but the bottom line is
don't just put your data
in a backup repository
and wait for bad things to happen.
Do something with that data,
DevOps acceleration, patch testing,
risk mitigation,
quarantine for forensics for cyber.
But there were a lot of,
"Yes, we're starting to do."
And also,
"Yes, we're aspiring
"over the next twelve months."
I think data reuse was a really big thing
that I was so glad that folks were getting
along the way.
And then also the recognition that
with the intolerance of downtime
and the intolerance of data loss
that was measured in the survey,
it was really obvious
that a lot more organizations understand
they have to be combining
not only backups
but also snapshots and replication
in a consistent way
because you can't meet the SLAs
that most organizations have today
if the only thing you're doing is
just nightly backup.
Now, Veeam, we would say,
"Great, you ought to do snapshots,
"you ought to do replication,
"you ought to do backup.
"Please don't use three different tools
"times each one of those
"times each workload.
"It's not economically
"or operationally viable."
So certainly and that's good news for us
because we manage all three
but those were kind of the two big drivers
that I was most excited about.
>> Yeah. If I take
what we got from the
data protection report
and then couple that with
recent industry analysis reports
from like IDC and Gartner.
If I merge that together,
I think one of the reasons
why Veeam has been very successful
literally knocked on wood
but Veeam is up as a company 10%,
year over year,
October to October.
I'm sorry, April to April
and that's been true for all 12 years
that Veeam has been
shipping backup product.
So in a tough time,
actually doing extremely well,
still hiring, still expanding.
Gartner has been for calendar year 2019
moving from number four in market globally
to number three, IDC maintains,
Veeam is number one in market in Europe.
Now the top five vendors,
three of the five
were negative year over year.
Veeam was the highest,
sequentially positive,
year over year positive
and I think the reasons why
now going back to the survey in my mind
was due to the software-defined nature
of the solution
and what I mean by that in particular.
Why that has customer value
especially now in a
current pandemic situation is
you can leverage the
existing infrastructure
that you've got.
We have been around
and remember the
macroeconomic issue of 2008.
Organizations held onto their assets
much much longer,
refresh cycles slowed down.
So the ability to leverage
the infrastructure that you have,
to scale out horizontally,
to be able to ingest more data.
To have a horizontal management plane,
to be able to have,
serve as a repository
that could include
Cloud and object storage
just allows you to better leverage
the investments you've made
but to flex appropriately for workloads
and to be able to expand into things
like public Cloud
and object storage as you see fit.
>> Excellent. Well, Dave and Jason
thank you so much for the update.
Real pleasure to catch up with you.
Always always great to dig into the data
with both of you.
>> Thank you Stu. Good to see you.
>> All right. Stay tuned for more coverage
from VeeamON 2020 online.
I'm Stu Miniman
and thank you for watching theCUBE.
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