VMblog:  Can you give VMblog readers a quick overview of the company?

Elton Carneiro:  Data is the digital world's most precious resource, yet leading on-premises and cloud solutions often make storing and using data complicated, conflicted, and costly.

That's where Backblaze comes in. Backblaze is astonishingly easy cloud storage at ⅕ the cost of other leading providers like Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure-all with the enterprise-grade security, availability, and performance you'd expect for backup, active archive, or applications. It's hot storage at cold storage prices. Astonishingly easy.

VMblog:  What will VeeamON attendees be most interested to know about your company/technology?  Why will they want to add you to their MUST SEE list at the show?

Carneiro:  Attendees "must" come to our booth because we provide the easiest approach to modern data protection in the cloud, and we do it at a fraction of the price of other vendors. The easy and affordable combination has delivered value for our customers beyond anything they expected.

Beyond offering customers the ability to implement a 3-2-1-1-0 backup strategy, this year at VeeamOn, we will be unleashing a new offering with one of our partners to offer DRaaS at a far more affordable price. Instant Business Recovery is a solution that allows small to medium size enterprises get business continuity with ease and without breaking the bank.

Our team of Veeam and Backblaze experts will be on site and in the virtual event to discuss various customer use cases and how we can solve the problems they face. We also have very cool swag-which, let's face it, sometimes can be a bigger motivator. Whatever reason attendees find to visit us, they'll leave feeling good about the opportunity to protect their data and their budget in one move.

VMblog:  Diving into your company's technology a bit more, can you give readers a few examples of how your offerings are unique?  What are your differentiators?

Carneiro:  Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage is differentiated by its ease of use, affordability, and our trusted track record. In addition, Backblaze B2 does not have any hidden fees. Plus, our exclusive Instant Business Recovery solution fully supports business needs for cyber resiliency.

Seamless Integration:

• Get started in minutes. Make Backblaze B2 your cloud storage target to back up and/or archive your Veeam data to a secure, off-site, geographically distanced location.

Affordable:

• Backblaze is 1/5th the price of legacy cloud storage solutions the price of other cloud storage solutions.

Importantly:

• We have NO minimum retention fees (aka delete penalties) and we do not charge for Object Lock which enables immutability

Just Launched:

• Backblaze B2 Reserve Cloud Storage to align with Veeam customer preferences.

• Exclusive to the channel, a capacity-based model, offering customers 1, 2, or 3 year SKUs starting at 20TB.

• Also comes with complimentary Tera (premium) level support, no egress fees, and included data migration support.

Secure:

• Immutability with Object Lock provides incredible ransomware protection. With Object Lock, your data cannot be deleted, encrypted, or modified. Configure access with governance and compliance settings.

• 2FA, server-side encryption, and SOC 2- type 2 certified

• SOC-2 compliant data centers in the U.S. and EU.

Trusted:

• All data readily available, backed by SLA.

• Backblaze has an over 15 year track record and currently manages nearly 3 exabytes of data storage for more than 500,000 customers in over 175 countries.

Instant Business Recovery:

• Offers fully-managed, on-demand DRaaS including bare metal servers and compute resources to support RTO needs.
  

VMblog:  What does your partnership with Veeam look like?  How does your product fit within the Veeam ecosystem?

Carneiro:  Veeam is a strategic alliance partner for Backblaze. We have been partners for a number of years and align directly with their commitment to ease-of-use and their mission to help the Veeam customer base modernize their data protection strategy. As a Veeam Ready-Object with Immutability certified partner, customers can send their backups to Backblaze B2 as their primary repository (using the direct-to-object feature) or as their secondary repository in the Capacity Tier of the Scale-out Backup Repository.

Importantly, Backblaze B2 also supports the Object Lock feature, which Veeam takes advantage of to make customers' backups immutable and therefore protected from ransomware.

VMblog:  Can you give us a sneak peek as to what you will be showing off at your booth this year?

Carneiro:  We've got a lot of fun lined up, but here are three things attendees should not miss:

• This year, hot off the press, is our solution that we are building with Continuity Centers who are a Veeam VCSP and long time Backblaze customer, which allows companies to implement a DR plan that meets their business needs and is more affordable than the standard offerings. We will be highlighting this in our Breakout Session on Tuesday at 1:30pm called "Build a DRaaS offering at No Extra Cost."

• Our Miami Beach Pub Crawl with phoenixNap, which starts on Tuesday evening at 6pm and runs through 3 locations to be announced the day before the event. Once you register online, you can pick up your wristbands at the Backblaze Booth.

• And, don't forget to stop by the booth to see demos of what Backblaze can do, grab some Blazing Hot SWAG, and sign up for our raffle giveaway. We are giving away the BlazePod Pro Trainer in our booth. Stop by the booth to test it out, challenge me or another Backblaze employee to a contest of focus, reaction time or speed.
  

VMblog:  What are some of the big challenges that you believe VeeamON attendees are facing in 2023?  And how does your company help solve them?

Carneiro:  It's no longer a matter of if, but when, a security incident will threaten business operations. And with the ever-present threat of ransomware, it's important that businesses think beyond backups to how to make their company more cyber resilient overall.

This means considering what to do during a security incident, including how they might need to restore infrastructure in the case of an on-premises disaster that wipes out both servers and access to Veeam, as well as how they will quickly restore their backups from cloud storage. Backblaze B2 not only helps customers protect their data (with Object Lock and other enterprise-grade security features), but it also provides the most readily accessible storage so customers can restore immediately with no cold delays.

With always-hot storage there's no worry of glacial retrieval items, and there are no egress fees for recovering your data with B2 Reserve. Last, Continuity Center's Instant Business Recovery - which is built on Backblaze and Veeam - offers fully-managed, on-demand Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) with affordable Silver and Platinum packages that are a fraction of the cost of traditional DRaaS services. With Instant Business Recovery, you can spin up bare metal servers and Veeam in the cloud to begin instantly recovering your data. Also, 24/7 DR support from our partner, Continuity Centers, ensures you can respond to the incident quickly and effectively, to support business continuity even during a data disaster.

VMblog:  If you were giving the keynote presentation at VeeamON 2023, what would your topic be about?

Carneiro:  We're obviously cloud evangelists, so if we were offering a keynote it would underscore the value of incorporating the cloud into your business right now. It's easy to get stuck in all the old arguments about on-prem versus the cloud, but new benefits to a hybrid or full cloud approach appear almost daily: Immutable backups (beyond being a great line of defense) can decrease your cyber insurance bill. You never have to worry about supply chains - that, and so many other hardware headaches are ours to worry about. Finance teams increasingly seek an OpEx approach and you can unlock a big piece of your balance sheet in that regard. It would be a long keynote - but we'll leave it there for a taste of what we'd have to say.

VMblog:  What is it about VeeamON that makes you want to sponsor?

Carneiro:  VeeamON is a fantastic event to showcase our long partnership with Veeam and how it enables us to help Veeam customers to protect, lock, and recover their data in the cloud. Our partnership is as organic as it is strategic in that we're naturally aligned around ease of use and data protection modernization, so it's a no-brainer for us to sponsor an event that brings together our community of data protection advocates with customers and resellers we can help.

VMblog:  Is your company involved with any breakout sessions at the show?  If so, can you tell us about it?

Carneiro:  We have a fireside chat presentation called "Build a DRaaS offering at no extra cost," on Tuesday, May 23 at 1:30pm in the Shimmer Room, where Continuity Centers, one of our customers, leverages Veeam and Backblaze to create a service offering for disaster recovery. Greg Tellone, CEO of Continuity Centers and Rasmus Haslund, Principal Technologist, & VMCT Program Manager from Veeam will be joining me on stage. Join the session to have a chance to win a pair of Sony Noise Canceling Wireless Earbuds.

VMblog:  Attendees are ready to once again throw some amazing tchotchke into their swag bags.  Are you giving away anything special at this event?

Carneiro:  Of course! Everyone knows that coming away with swag is part of what makes being together great, and we will definitely have some blazing hot giveaways for visitors this year with Hot Sauce, collapsible/foldable beach bags, sunglasses, stickers and more.  In addition, one lucky winner on the last day of the event will receive a BlazePod Pro-Bundle.