Cloud Data Management is a tricky word. Often vague, ambigious, how exactly would you define “Cloud Data Management“?
Fresh off the boat from Commvault GO 2019 in Denver, Colorado last week, I was invited to sample Veeam a few days ago at their Solution Day and soak into their rocketing sales in Asia Pacific, and strong market growth too. They reported their Q3 numbers this week, impressing many including yours truly.
I went to the seminar early in the morning, quite in awe of their vibrant partners and resellers activities and ecosystem compared to the tepid Commvault efforts in Malaysia over the past decade. Veeam’s presence in Malaysia is shorter than Commvault’s but they are able to garner a stronger following with partners and customers alike.
What is Cloud Data Management?
The data protection landscape is enjoying a renaissance in the past couple of years. Backup, restore, disaster recovery, data availability are converging together into a super data management platform. And the likes of the new unicorns like Cohesity and Rubrik have taken this “data management platform” even further beyond the traditional use cases, into test-dev, file share analytics, copy data management, key search and the cloud. Even the perennial dinosaur(ic) word of archive is getting a sexy makeover in this new era of cloud data management. And peppered with a dash of cybersecurity tech on it, and a touch of file analytics, a sprinkle of GRC (governance, risk & compliance) and a dab of eDiscovery and we are seeing the formation of framework of the modern Cloud Data Management.
As the multi-cloud era is gathering prominence, IDC terms cloud data management in a multi-faceted set of methods. The coverage, from IDC’s perspective, includes:
- Cloud-based solutions, including backup as a service (BaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)
- Public, private, and hybrid cloud data protection technologies
- Disk-based data protection and recovery solutions packaged as software, appliance, or gateway system with a focus on technology evolution
- Market forecast based on total terabytes shipped and revenue for disk-based data protection and recovery (No vendor shares will be published.)
- End-user adoption of different data protection and recovery technologies and solutions
- Cloud service providers delivering cloud-based data protection
- Data protection for nontraditional data types (e.g., Mongo DB, Cassandra, Hadoop)
- Vendors delivering disk-based data protection and recovery solutions with focus on architecture based on use cases and applications
- Technologies and processes, including backup, snapshots, replication, continuous data protection, and data deduplication
- Impact of purpose-built backup appliances (PBBAs) and hyperconverged systems on overall market growth and customer adoption
- Implications of copy data management and impact on data availability, capacity management, cost, governance, and security
- The evolutionary impact of virtual infrastructure and object storage on data protection schemes
- Implications of flash technology for data protection
- Data protection best practice guidelines and adoption
And there are other burgeoning requirements that have yet to be well covered, such as backup for containers and Kubernetes, in-memory databases, edge computing datasets, time-series and graph databases and more.
Veeam’s market positives
In a surreptitiously funny way, I was ushered into Veeam’s Premier Breakfast. There were short presentations by Effendy Ibrahim, Veeam’s VP for Asia and Raymond Goh, their Head of Systems Engineering, highlighting Veeam’s success in the past year. Some notes:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 75
- Bookings exceeding USD 1 billion
Globally their Q3 numbers for FY2019 showed no signs of slowing down as well, impressing in many ways. Some highlights I caught were:
- ARR (annual recurring revenue) up 24% Y-O-Y
- Increase of 108% in bookings with strong uptick of the Veeam Universal License
- Enterprise business grew 20%
- Veeam Backup for Office 365 up by 113%
- Customer base grew to 375,000 from 350,000.
All this against a backdrop of USD500 million investment early this year. Veeam will be going all out to define and defend their crown in Cloud Data Management.
Litmus test and the sweet spot
Starting from a “prosumer” position a decade ago, Veeam has aggressively won the market over. They have cemented their leadership in the Data Protection market space, as shown recently in both the Forrester Wave and the (contentious) Gartner Magic Quadrant of 2019.
They have a nice sweet spot with their solutions portfolio, something I am glad to report. Their small-medium enterprises appeal has capture the imagination and energy of the resellers, partners and service providers. In their recent report, their VCSP (Veeam Cloud & Service Provider Program) has amassed more than 24,500 partners and resellers, with more coming forth, I am sure.
As they move up towards the Enterprise space, incumbent like Commvault is waking to the challenge. Veaam’s true test to roost the Cloud Data Management space is getting closer. IBM, Dell EMC, and Veritas have become laggards in recent years, pitting Veeam against Commvault, a giant coming off its slumber, in a potential David vs Goliath match. But Veeam has a strong sales run rate, whereas Commvault, as I have learnt, with only half of Veeam’s.
Veeam is not finished yet
I have seen Veeam’s momentum in the Malaysia market. I went to their office opening in MidValley, Kuala Lumpur about 4 years ago when I was the Country Manager of NetApp Malaysia. Not long after that, their staff count jumped and I have seen them grown leaps and bounds.
As they dive into the Enterprise space, their momentum and great marketing have captured the attention of larger organizations. Their Simplicity is one buzzword I hear a lot from customers and partners alike, and the simple-and-intuitive approach of their technology enhances deep customer experience and loyalty. From the breakfast presentation, Veeam now has physical backup and tape-out as well, 2 important things enterprise customers will be asking.
In conclusion, Veeam isn’t finished just yet. There are still a few enterprise features yet to be included in Veeam’s technology portfolio. And I believe these enterprise features will be there in their future releases.
In my point of view, they are at the cusp of a growth trajectory and they have plenty of room to grow.
