Veeam Cloud Connect Gives Service Providers Way to Host Backups Offsite

Veeam Software, Inc. announced Cloud Connect, part of its new Availability Suite v8, which will be available in Q3, 2014.

The new functionality gives service providers a pipeline to benefit from the Veeam ecosystem, which includes over 101,000 customers. They get an integrated, secure and efficient means to move backups to an offsite backup repository managed by the service provider of their choice, but without the upfront capital investment of an offsite infrastructure.

“To ensure complete data center availability in the event of any disaster, Veeam recommends that IT follow the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of data on two different kinds of media, one of which is offsite,” said Ratmir Timashev, president and CEO, Veeam. “Veeam Cloud Connect enables IT to fulfill the offsite requirement without having to invest in offsite infrastructure or management, and presents new opportunities for service providers and Veeam resellers to build recurring revenue, offer additional services and establish relationships with new customers.”

Opportunities for Service Providers
Both current Veeam Cloud Providers (VCPs) and new Veeam service providers can leverage Veeam Cloud Connect to grow their customer base and recurring revenue streams. Setup requires a single server and takes less than 10mn, providing all the infrastructure management capabilities a service provider needs to offer an offsite repository service to Veeam customers.

Plus, pricing has been tailored to meet the needs of service providers. Instead of an up-front perpetual license, Veeam offers service providers monthly per VM licensing. Finally, customers can search for and contact nearby service providers through an integrated Web portal in Veeam Availability Suite v8, bringing new customers right to the service provider’s doorstep.

Features for service providers include:

• Cloud gateway: Virtualizes all traffic between the customer and the service provider through a single port, creating a convenient way for customers to connect with cloud resources through firewalls.
• SSL connection: Reliable, secure connection over SSL eliminates extra costs, complexity and management overhead-maintaining VPN infrastructure is no longer necessary.
• Multi-tenancy: Manage multiple customers, cloud repositories and cloud gateways from one all-inclusive management and reporting console.
• Resource management: Allocate storage for each customer, while leveraging built-in reports and alerts to track storage consumption, manage expiration dates, and send automatic renewal reminders.
• Scale-out architecture: Easily scale Veeam Cloud Connect infrastructure by deploying multiple cloud gateways, thus enabling automatic load balancing and HA.
• End-to-end encryption: All data is protected in-flight with SSL, and customers can additionally encrypt data at-source (before it leaves their network perimeter) and still get the benefits of built-in WAN acceleration.

“We have provided offsite backup and DR for Veeam customers since 2011,” said Matthew Chesterton, president, OffsiteDataSync, a Rochester, NY-based cloud solutions company and a Gold Veeam cloud provider. “By supporting multi-tenancy and eliminating the need for VPN connections, Veeam cloud Connect makes it easier to offer these services at scale. Our hosting and Veeam expertise, along with the new cloud Connect functionality and Veeam’s huge presence in the market, will allow us to quickly acquire new customers, resulting in additional growth of our company’s overall profitability.”

“Our customers are increasingly telling us that their applications and data centers need to be available 24-7,” said Helene Caraux, cloud product manager, OVH, a Platinum Veeam cloud provider. “With Veeam Cloud Connect, we can play an important role in making that happen by providing them with a simple, secure and affordable way to move backups offsite to our repository. It enables additional availability and security services for us as well as additional peace of mind for our customers. Thanks to Veeam, it’s a win for both of us.”

New Offsite Options for Customers
Veeam Cloud Connect enables Veeam customers to send backups offsite to a hosted repository through a reliable, secure SSL connection with no additional Veeam licensing required. It’s a way to protect against the risk of catastrophic data loss without owning, managing and maintaining hardware at a second site, or struggling with data transfer and security issues of public cloud backup. Instead, IT can find a service provider they trust to host their offsite backups. IT only pays for what it uses.

Additional features for customers include:

• Visibility and control: Access and recover data from hosted backup repositories directly from the Veeam backup console. Track cloud repository consumption and receive reminders for hosted storage renewals.
• Backup architecture: Veeam’s Modern Data Center availability technology, including Backup Copy jobs with Built-in WAN Acceleration, forever incremental backups, GFS (grandfather-father-son) retention policies and more, to master the ‘3-2-1 rule’ built into one product.
• End-to-end encryption: Rest easy by encrypting data in-transit and at rest in the cloud repository.

Veeam Cloud Connect will be available as part of the Availability Suite v8, which will be available in Q3, 2014. Veeam Availability Suite v8 will be showcased at VeeamON: The World’s Premier Data Center Availability Event, taking place October 6-9, 2014 at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, NV. Veeam will bring together, customers and partners who will learn about enabling the Always-On Business.

Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 25,000 ProPartners and more than 101,000 customers worldwide.