Breaking down the numbers, Veeam went all out this year for its 9th VeeamON event. Like last year, 2023 was another hybrid event, with both a physical event (in Miami) and a digital version that took place online. VeeamON 2023 had:

• 16,000 attendees
• 156 sessions (in-person, online and in-demand)
• 150+ speakers, including from Microsoft, AWS, VMware, Datacom, Computacenter, 11:11 Systems and Scality
• 220 partners
• 25 customers speakers (the most ever at VeeamON)

The event hit a number of key topics, chief among them Microsoft 365, Cloud, Ransomware, and Security. Some of the significant takeaways from the event should have left a lasting impact on attendees.

Embracing the Cloud for Data Management:

One of the major takeaways from VeeamON 2023 was the continued emphasis on leveraging the cloud for data management. Speakers highlighted the importance of cloud-based solutions for data backup, recovery, and archiving. The event showcased Veeam's cloud-native offerings, including backup and disaster recovery as a service (BaaS/DRaaS), and explored the benefits of integrating these solutions with leading cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Strengthening Cybersecurity Posture:

With the rising number of cyber threats and data breaches, cybersecurity was a key focus at VeeamON 2023. Presenters emphasized the need for organizations to adopt robust data protection strategies to safeguard against ransomware, malware, and other malicious activities. Veeam showcased its enhanced security features, including immutable backups, insider protection, and continuous data protection, providing attendees with insights on fortifying their cybersecurity posture.

Intelligent Data Management with AI and Machine Learning:

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies into data management processes was a prominent theme at the event. Speakers discussed how these technologies can enhance data visibility, automate backup and recovery operations, and improve proactive risk management. Attendees learned about Veeam's AI-driven capabilities, such as predictive analytics, anomaly detection, and automated data classification, enabling organizations to optimize their data management strategies.

Simplifying Multi-Cloud Data Management:

As businesses increasingly adopt multi-cloud environments, managing data across different platforms becomes more complex. VeeamON 2023 addressed this challenge by showcasing Veeam's solutions for simplified multi-cloud data management. Attendees discovered how Veeam can seamlessly migrate, protect, and recover data across multiple cloud providers, enabling organizations to achieve greater agility and flexibility in their cloud strategies.

Data Governance and Compliance:

Data governance and compliance were key areas of focus at VeeamON 2023. Presentations and discussions revolved around the importance of adhering to industry regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA, and implementing data governance frameworks. Veeam highlighted its features for data governance and compliance, such as data lifecycle management, retention policies, and audit trail capabilities, empowering organizations to meet regulatory requirements and maintain data integrity.

Ransomware Trends Report:

During the event, Veeam also released the findings from an independent research project, the 2023 Ransomware Trends Report. Veeam contracted with a research firm to conduct blind interviews and surveys of 1,200 organizations who suffered one or more attacks in 2022. A key aspect of the project was to survey four different personas involved in aspects of cyber-prevention or attack-remediation, including:

• CISO or another responsible IT executive
• Security professionals
• IT operations
• Backup administrators

The 2023 Ransomware Trends Report provided insights into a number of key areas, including:

• The contents of most risk management roadmaps and incident response playbooks.
• How were ransoms paid, and what is changing in cyber-insurance?
• How many organizations, even if they had policies not to, were able to recover?
• How pervasive were the attacks? How much data were organizations able to recover?
• Were criminals able to affect backup repositories?   

Kubernetes is also the next frontier for Veeam with Kasten:

While at the show, the company announced version 6.0 of its Kasten K10 product, used for Kubernetes data protection. New features include:

• Enterprise-Grade Ransomware Protection: Kasten K10 V6.0 enables organizations to create proactive ransomware protection strategies by improving suspicious activity detection capabilities, providing immutable backups, and elevating their capability for instant recovery. The new release extends threat detection capabilities by logging all events into Kubernetes Audit natively. The Kubernetes Audit logs can then be analyzed holistically by intelligent threat detection solutions to look for and flag patterns of abnormal, suspicious activity. The ability to interface with AWS Secrets Manager to store/retrieve passcodes allows for more flexibility in implementing a hardened, secure disaster recovery (DR) workflow for K10 itself. Also, Kasten K10's Kubernetes native policies can be integrated into Infrastructure as Code to provide "guardrails," allowing for risk mitigation, operational consistency, and automation.

• Scalability and Efficiency Improvements: A new application fingerprinting feature enables newly deployed stateful applications to be automatically mapped to appropriate blueprints to achieve proper data consistency. This helps to reduce risk, minimize complexity, nurture operational consistency, and enforce improved compliance, paving the way for scale. Kasten K10 V6.0 also offers an improved metadata transformation experience (as typically required when restoring or migrating applications across environments), a streamlined VM restore workflow for Red Hat OpenShift virtualization and multi-cluster license management, allowing for an improved and more efficient user experience.   

• Cloud Native Expansion: Kasten K10 continues to add the most up-to-date cloud native integrations that facilitate new workloads and storage types, hybrid deployments and increased security capabilities. Kasten K10 V6.0 now supports Kubernetes 1.26, Red Hat OpenShift 4.12 and a new built-in blueprint for Amazon RDS, allowing for broader reach and interoperability. The platform also added additional hybrid cloud support on GCP, cross-platform restore targets for VMware Tanzu environments, and new Cisco Hybrid Cloud CVD with Red Hat OpenShift and Kasten K10. Adding new storage options for NetApp ONTAP S3 and Dell-EMC ECS S3 allows for more freedom of choice and interoperability with storage targets.

In the end, VeeamON 2023 in Miami provided attendees with a wealth of knowledge and insights into the evolving landscape of data management, backup, and recovery. Key messages served as guiding principles for attendees to shape their data management strategies, protect their valuable assets, and stay ahead in an increasingly digital world. VeeamON 2023 solidified Veeam Software's position as a leader in the industry and set the stage for future innovations in data management and protection.