The digital landscape is evolving. Cyberthreats have become more sophisticated, data estates are growing, and IT resources are shrinking. Today’s organizations need a more proactive approach to protecting their data in an ever-changing threat landscape. And while traditional data protection solutions may play a pivotal role in recovering post-attack, they are reactionary, narrowly focused, and no longer sufficient.

Cyberthreats today are designed to silently bypass perimeter defenses and inflict pain in ways that traditional backup and recovery solutions cannot combat. The threat of data exfiltration, theft, and damage is now more prevalent than ever and can be devastating to businesses if not addressed.

Proactive, Layered Data Protection

To address these cyber threats, organizations must look beyond conventional security tools and take steps to ensure data resiliency. This requires a proactive approach with layered protection, also known as defense in depth. It is the practice of implementing multiple tools and measures to protect against a wide range of threats. Each layer has a specific function, working in unison for multi-faceted protection for your environment. Commvault applies this very principle to data protection, uniquely delivering the right breadth of detection, security, and recovery capabilities to actively secure, defend, and recover data broadly across production and backup environments.

Layered protection that actively defends data and its recoverability across the industry’s
broadest set of workloads

Innovative Data Protection with New
Products and Services

We are pushing the boundaries of data protection in this modern world, and redefining how businesses of every size combat risk, minimize threats, secure entire data estates, and drive better business outcomes. We are setting a higher standard for customers’ security posture and delivering the best value in data protection. New products and features include:

• Commvault Auto Recovery delivers complete cyber recovery and business continuity, both on-premises and in the cloud, providing secure, reliable, and near real-time cyber resiliency.
  • Recovery orchestration with one-click recovery of clean copies across workloads to production after validating and sanitizing recovery points.
  • Recovery validation to continuously validate backups, demonstrate recovery readiness, and reduce recovery testing complexities.

• Commvault Cloud Command provides customers global visibility and actionable insights across SaaS, cloud, and on-premises through a SaaS-delivered unified platform. It enables standardization of security postures and simplifies data risk management to make optimal decisions for recovery readiness.
• Commvault Risk Analysis identifies, categorizes, and classifies sensitive data such as personal, financial information, and intellectual property to prioritize security efforts and take action to reduce data exfiltration.

Delivering a proactive and reliable recovery across the industry’s broadest workload coverage is proven to reduce downtime, thwart data loss, and accelerate response times. Businesses will benefit from our end-to-end insights and observability across the entire data protection lifecycle to anticipate risk, proactively minimize threats, control data (and its access), and drive more informed recovery outcomes.

Organizations of all sizes can feel confident that with the help of Commvault’s advanced data protection and recovery solutions, you can become the face of the next generation of data protection: Data, Secured. Data, Defended. Data, Recovered.

To learn more, use our buyer’s guide to map your current cyber security protection and recovery capabilities and determine how best to optimize your readiness plan across hybrid, cloud, or SaaS workload environments.

Watch our video on Data Protection Redefined as our mission is to secure, protect, and recover all your data with the world’s only unified data protection platform, which has the lowest TCO of any solution that even comes close.

Visit our web page to learn.

We live in interesting times, don’t we? Data has reshaped business, how organizations operate, and what customers expect. It’s a hybrid cloud world, where companies have more data in more places, on more apps and different platforms than ever before. And AI is on the verge of changing everything in profound ways. 

All of which makes data the most critical asset you own, the heartbeat of your organization. In short, there’s nothing more important than ensuring its security and protection. 

Too bad the space is full of hype and me-too claims that all sound alike. To make smart decisions requires clarity. But some vendors seem more dedicated to throwing shade than grasping the dimensions of the problem. Trying to convince you that the only answer is a volume play—multiple solutions, more tools, more backup or a new partnership marketed heavily as solving a customer problem, but in reality, is only solving a gap in vendor capability or a workload coverage issue.

But are these claims really true? Or are they just relying on a lot of flashy buzzwords to make up for the shortcomings in their own offerings? It’s kind of insulting if you think about it—as a smart tech buyer, aren’t you going to see through this stuff?

Questions well worth asking. I did when I first joined Commvault. My take on marketing technology is simple: you find out what your product does better than your competitors and find a smart, compelling way to talk about it. You don’t lie. You don’t exaggerate. You explain.

Let’s start by explaining that Commvault protects the broadest range of workloads of any vendor. As the ultimate data protection for today’s hybrid cloud world, we cover on-premise, private and public cloud, SaaS, and almost anywhere your data lives.

So, when some new competitor starts labeling us as “legacy data protection”, you’re smart enough to know that really means they’re trying desperately to keep up with our multi-cloud SaaS Data Protection, cloud air-gap, and integrated threat deception technology. 

When they call our protection of a broad range of workloads  “complex”, you’re not about to confuse flexibility with complexity. Flexibility, good. Complexity, bad. Ironically, the same vendors doing this are also forcing customers to adopt and manage separate point solutions. And what does that bring with it (in addition to cost and risk)? Say it with me: complexity.

Now let’s talk about security. I’ve seen companies sell their products as the “only” or “best” Zero Trust security. Well, for one, Zero Trust is a comprehensive approach. Not some bolt on capability. In a hybrid world, data security only works, as it does in Commvault, when it’s built in, pervasive, has the capability to also defend beyond breaches, and guards backups, as well.

Which brings me to my last point. A lot of what some competitors label as “unique” to them—immutability, zero trust, backup monitoring—are actually just table stakes in a robust data protection solution, like Commvault.

Don’t just take our word for it. Listen to what our customers have to say:

We were looking for an offering that could protect the many key platforms deployed across our environment, and Cohesity couldn’t check either of those boxes.

– Jeffrey Day, IT Security Architect at Nevada Department of Transportation

We hear this a lot actually; “To scale you need more boxes, more, more”.  But in data protection, bigger doesn’t mean better, and it certainly doesn’t mean smarter.  It adds more of the things you don’t need: cost, complexity and risk via a bigger cyberattack surface. 

With something as critical to the success of your business, there really isn’t room for fuzzy claims and fudged execution. A hybrid cloud world demands comprehensive data protection that gives you options (not complexity), delivers proactive security, active data defense, and rapid recovery through a single, gap-free platform. Without add-ins, bolt-ons, and upsells. It’s time to cut through the noise and deliver effective solutions, so you can focus on what really matters—running your business.

Visit www.commvault.com/questionit

Sources:

1. ESG research (From Data Backup to Data Intelligence, January 2022)

“We’re #1! We’re #1!”

When the dust settles on championships, that chant is heard in stadiums worldwide. High score wins, the trophy is held aloft (tossed, if you’re Tom Brady), and the celebration begins alongside Queen racking up more well-deserved royalties.

But how do you determine who’s at the top of the mountain in the data protection world? Ensuring the integrity of your crown jewels in the cloud or on-prem is not a game that ends after a preset period – it’s an ongoing battle that rages 24 x 7 and is fought by CISOs, IT Managers, Database Administrators…the list goes on. It’s complicated, requires adaptable strategy, dedication to the cause, and relentless ambition to best bad actors.

As a result, it’s always an interesting exercise to unpack claims of dominance in this market. Some are true (but come with asterisks), some are highly debatable, some are false, and others are flat-out hyperbole. Let’s look at how one vendor positions their claim of being the best.

Subjective vs. Objective…vs. the Real World

Right out of the gate, we need to understand that many cloud claims rely on two dimensions: subjective (open to opinion) and objective (factual). However, let’s not forget about what we call “real-world” claims – this is what directly impacts your business, and how you use the cloud to run it. Examples:

• Objective claim: “81% of the Fortune 500”
  • Assuming this is correct in some capacity, there is no context to support it. 81% tried the product? Bought the product at one time? Have been using it for more than a year?
  • Is your company in the Fortune 500? If not, the message is “If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for you.” See? Now it’s become a subjective claim.
  • Do you have the resources/budget of a Fortune 500 company? If not, how does this help you?
• Subjective claim: “We protect everything”
  • Everything means every single kind of data in existence, from every vendor. Which certainly encompasses every cloud workload.
  • In this case, the vendor making this claim actually does not backup certain workloads for Azure databases.
  • Are you in the Azure cloud? If so, how does that statement sit with you?

Which brings us to the real-world aspect. We know that 80% of all enterprises have a hybrid cloud strategy¹…and once you are in the cloud, you’re going to stay in the cloud. You may be multi-cloud, public cloud, or hybrid cloud, but make no mistake, you’re invested. So why do broad claims like the above exist?

Because assurance is hard to come by in the real world.

And because trusting is easier to do than verifying.

14M M365 users? Ever wonder how many of those are using the free version of the app? It’s a significant number – which means you’re not being given the complete picture.

Fact: peace of mind means different things to different businesses. Different clouds, different workloads, different skill sets, different levels of security in place. They all come together to form your personal cloud strategy. And at the end of the day, what matters is that your data can be restored to its pre-attack/incident state and is 100% intact, regardless of where it resides or what workload(s) are being made whole again.

That’s the claim that matters. That’s the real-world cloud claim. Full stop.

At Commvault, we make assertions about how we stack up very, very seriously. Any claims we make are objective and rooted in 3^rd-party validation, and of course, fact. There’s no better way to be transparent, and we’ve been doing so for over 26 years. Our customers and partners rely on that to defend, secure, and protect their data, day in and day out.

Are you making decisions that impact your business based on claims that at best, are not applicable to you, and at worst, completely false?

“Just the Facts, Ma’am”

The concept of Data Protection has evolved. It’s no longer sufficient to just provide backup – data protection solutions/services/platforms must now include features such as data security, analytics/insights, governance, compliance, data management, data mobility/migration, transformation, and of course, recovery. Many less capable vendors have been forced to approach this via acquisition partnerships/OEM, or via other more fragmented approaches with multiple tools.

Commvault is different.

There is an extensive list of achievements in the data protection space pioneered by us as the first to deliver on them – and in some instances, still the only vendor to do so. Consider the following:

• First to launch fully managed DPaaS offering supporting multiple clouds (Metallic®).
• First to launch cloud air-gapping (Metallic® Recovery Reserve™).
• First enterprise data protection solution to support containers and Kubernetes (2017).
• The only vendor with support for many cloud-native applications (AuroraDB, CosmosDB, OCI, more) that other vendors cannot protect.
• The only vendor to support protecting all Azure PaaS databases.

Being #1 Means Cloud Security is Built-In–Not Bolted On

Many vendors overplay their support for immutability (either directly or via third parties) as sufficient data security, but if you don’t know you even have corrupted data, how can you truly be “protected”?

Immutability is table stakes, but it’s not enough. Without air-gapping, detection, and other layers of data security you end up with ransomware-infected immutable files. You need more than just immutability as part of your solution – things like:

• Metallic® ThreatWise^TM cyber deception and early warning solution.
• Support for the air gapping, – to include tape.
• Granular “clean” recovery, ensuring ONLY the bad data is “purged,” but the good data is still available.
• No additional tools or third-party support required.
• Cloud extension for immutability without the need for appliances.
• No need to LOCK the entire backup copy when corrupted data is found – which means that good data is getting thrown out with the bad, which equals data loss.

Being #1 Means Reducing TCO (or “Show me the money”)

Finally, let’s cut through the marketecture and jargon/rhetoric around TCO used by some vendors to lay claim to that #1 positioning. Today, TCO is a close second to security in terms of what you need. So, while saying things like “1.1M average cost savings” is (again) highly subjective depending on your company size, consider what real TCO looks like in any given situation:

• True SaaS means zero infrastructure to manage; a control plane in the cloud does not mean SaaS.
• Deduplication saves data ingress/egress charges.
• Compression means less data mobility and more savings.
• The ability to scale your solution up AND down depending on need – not just scaling up if demand is reduced or workloads shift to other clouds/platforms.

Being #1 Means Complementing Cloud Native Capabilities

The cloud offers data resilience, which is important to ensure that your data and applications are always available, but does not protect you from data corruption, malware, or other related incidents – you end up with highly resilient “bad data.” Data protection is critical for cloud native and SaaS-based applications.

And because being able to protect any application is the name of the data protection game, how does one claim to be #1 in modern data protection without that? Commvault offers best-in-class data protection for traditional, hybrid, cloud, modern, and containerized applications as part of a unified service and console – eliminating the need for multiple, overlapping tools. Offering the broadest spectrum of workload coverage in the industry, Commvault drives “hard cost savings for Microsoft customers” according to ESG. And the Gartner Magic Quadrant? A leader the last 11 years in a row. Add to that leader status for the most recent GigaOm Radar Hybrid Cloud Data Protection report, and you know you’re in good hands.

Wrapping up, we’re not here to debate our position on the data protection leaderboard, although we do think our case for sitting at the top is strong. The way our 100,000+ customers see it, with over 3.8EB having been moved to the cloud, Commvault is the global leader in hybrid cloud data protection. We’ve been doing this for 26 years, nearly all of it with our foundational partner Microsoft.

The TL; DR? Ask your vendor if your data is being secured, defended, and recovered with 100% efficiency, for the right workloads, in the right places, by the right vendor – both now AND in the future. You might be surprised by what you find.

Take a test drive of Commvault today https://www.commvault.com/request-demo

Reference
1. State of the Cloud Report, Flexera, 2022