VMblog: To kick things off, give VMblog readers a quick overview of the company.
Candida Valois: Scality provides object storage for on-premises IT infrastructure, which is one of the fastest-growing and most competitive software technologies in the market today. Organizations looking to store and manage critical peta-byte scale data turn to us to help them manage and store their unstructured data stores. This includes massive amounts of image files, documents, PDFs, videos and other data that does not sit in a database. Our customers include some of the world's largest banks, healthcare providers, global media companies, transportation, telcos and cloud service providers.In recent years, we've expanded our offering to include cyber-resilient storage solutions that protect data against AI-fueled ransomware. Scality ARTESCA is simple and secure S3 object storage that is built for Veeam to provide ransomware-proof backups; it's the only S3 object storage software designed to provide the strongest form of data immutability plus five levels of cyber resiliency-that we refer to as the CORE5.
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?
Valois: Scality ARTESCA is the preferred backup solution for Veeam. It delivers affordable, unbreakable ransomware protection that is easy to use without sacrificing performance.
The rise of AI-fueled ransomware has made backups a vulnerable target for threats. As such, organizations must have a backup storage solution that enables end-to-end cyber resilience with unbreakable data protection at every level of the system, from API to architecture. Scality ARTESCA is the only solution that does this.
VMblog: What made you sponsor VeeamON this year? Is this a must sponsor event for your company? Why?
Valois: Veeam is one of our most trusted partners and we share a common goal of giving our customers solutions to defend against ransomware attacks. We have a great working relationship with Veeam; not just with the sales and partner teams, but with the product team, with whom we work closely to ensure tight integrations with Veeam solutions. It was an easy decision to sponsor VeeamON.
As partners, we can offer channel-friendly, simple and affordable solutions to our joint customers. All of that makes VeeamOn a special event for Scality - as does getting to meet and connect with so many members of the Veeam user community in person.
VMblog: Diving into your company's technology, can you give readers a few examples of how your offerings are unique? What differentiates your technology from others in the market? What unique benefit can Veeam users expect by integrating your solution?
Valois: Immutability isn't enough; just because an organization's backup is immutable doesn't mean it's unbreakable. Even traditional immutable storage systems can be vulnerable to cybercriminals. Linux-hardened repositories, for example, doesn't provide cyber resilience; it only enables short-term immutability
If critical windows of exposure are left unguarded, sophisticated attackers may still be able to maliciously access, overwrite, or exfiltrate the data. A modern storage solution must enable end-to-end cyber resilience with unbreakable data protection at every level of the system - from API to architecture. That's what Scality ARTESCA does with its five layers of cyber resiliency (CORE5).
ARTESCA goes beyond where traditional immutable solutions are today. We're the only object storage provider on the market to provide five critical levels of safeguards necessary to achieve a new level of cyber resilience, including:
- API-level resilience: Full S3 object lock compatibility
- Data-level resilience: Preventing data exfiltration
- Storage-level resilience: Distributed erasure coding to render storage-level data incomprehensible to attackers
- Geographic-level resilience: Redundancy across multiple sites
- Architecture-level resilience: Native object storage architecture keeps data intrinsically immutable
VMblog: Can you tell us a bit about your partnership with Veeam? How do your technologies integrate and complement Veeam's solutions to offer additional value to Veeam users? Or how does your technology enhance the Veeam experience?
Valois: Veeam customers deserve a fighting chance against ransomware attacks. Scality complements the industry-leading protection that Veeam Data Platform delivers at the data management layer. Scality ARTESCA is that solution. Offering the industry's strongest form of data immutability plus end-to-end cyber resilience, ARTESCA is optimized specifically for Veeam and supports all of its object storage capabilities. It is purpose-built for Veeam users and available as a turnkey integrated hardware appliance, making it the easiest-to-deploy solution on the market. In short, it's secure, efficient and simple to use.
VMblog: What are some of the big challenges that you believe VeeamON attendees are facing in 2024? And how does your company help solve them?
Valois: Far and away, the number one consideration when choosing a backup solution is security. After all, 93% of today's cyber-attacks target backup storage to force a ransom payment. And now we are seeing the rise of AI-powered ransomware, too. However, other important factors play into the decision-making, including scalability, performance, simplicity and cost. Scality ARTESCA plus Veeam is the ideal solution for backup application managers who need an affordable cyber-resilient backup solution that provides enterprise-class data protection capabilities, it's easy to manage and it's fast to deploy.
VMblog: If you were giving the keynote presentation at VeeamON 2024, what would your topic be about?
Valois: If I could give a keynote, I'd be really focusing on the failed promises around immutability. If vendors are telling organizations that immutability is enough, how can it be that organizations are still paying out billions of dollars in ransomware payments?
VMblog: Is your company involved with any breakout sessions at the show? If so, can you tell us about it?
Valois: I will be speaking with Aaron Murphy, field CTO for Veeam, on Wednesday, June 5 at 1:30 p.m. The title of our session is "AI-fueled ransomware is here: Go beyond immutable with Veeam and Scality."
Aaron and I both spend a lot of time with customers hearing about what's keeping them up at night and ransomware continues to be at the top of the list. It's clear that immutability isn't enough and organizations need more. We'll share these insights with attendees and discuss how organizations can move to end-to-end cyber resilience.
VMblog: Attendees are ready to once again throw some amazing tchotchke into their swag bags. Are you giving away anything special at this event?
Valois: Our theme for the show revolves around being resilient and unbreakable. Our swag consists of fitness items to help people "become unbreakable against ransomware." It includes yoga bands, stretcher bands, sweat bands and shaker bottles.
We'll also be raffling off an Apple Vision Pro for people who visit our booth, #P3, attend our session, take our risk assessment and book a meeting.
VMblog: What key takeaway do you want Veeam users and attendees to remember after visiting your booth at VeeamON?
Valois: Immutability isn't enough. It's time to go beyond immutability with end-to-end cyber resilience. Scality achieves this through five levels of protection - what we call the CORE5: API-level resilience, data-level resilience, storage-level resilience, geographic-level resilience and architecture-level resilience. If your backup solution doesn't address all five of these, your data is still at risk.
