Imagine your IT organization as a ship sailing the seas. Equipped with a sturdy hull, a reliable power source, and a skilled crew, you’re ready to handle any potential threats that appear during your ocean voyage. However, massive waves from an incoming storm unexpectedly hit, which destroys your ship and sweeps away everything onboard. Despite team’s intense preparation, your vessel and its crew are caught off guard for this specific disaster, leaving survival uncertain.

Although rarer than it once was, the above scenario mirrors the potential impact of a ransomware attack on your business. You may have a strong IT infrastructure to streamline many business challenges, but what if a hidden ransomware attack wipes out your data, tools, and accessibility? This happens to businesses of all sizes daily, costing millions of dollars and damaging brand reputations. As a last form or protection, IT leaders are turning to backup solutions that protect businesses from cyber threats. In this blog post, we discuss the features of a reputable backup service to ensure full-time cyber-resiliency.

Cyber Attacks Looming Ahead

Ransomware attacks are on the rise. It’s not just costly, but also jeopardizes business continuity, affect customer satisfaction, and expose you to legal and regulatory risks. found that 85% of organizations faced at least once such occurrence in 2023, and most of them more than once. Almost half of these organizations’ data was lost, so they had to restore it from valuable backups. Talk about the importance of this last resort! 

However, cybercriminals genuinely want to make sure you pay the ransom. This is why they go , even before they delete or encrypt your files or infect an organization’s network. The key to hitting your cybersecurity goals is having a reliable backup solution in place to keep business data safe. Let’s explore. 

Mastering Cyber-Resilience With A Backup Solution

Various backup solutions are available in the market with WEI being familiar with many reputable platforms. When selecting one to augment your ransomware and overall cybersecurity posture, the key features to look for in a meaningful backup solution include:

• Data Security: Ensure the chosen backup solution employs encryption for data at rest and in transit. It should also have measures in place to prevent unauthorized access or modifications.
• Malware Detection: The backup solution should include a feature capable of scanning your data for potential threats. Immediate alerts should be provided for any suspicious activity or infections.
• Automated Recovery: Look for a backup solution that facilitates quick and easy data restoration, minimizing downtime and data loss through automated recovery processes.
• Hybrid Cloud Capabilities: Opt for a backup solution that supports various environments, including on-premises, cloud, or hybrid setups. This flexibility allows seamless backup and restoration of data across different platforms.

The effectiveness of a cyber-resilience strategy lies in choosing a robust backup solution, and stands out as one of the industry’s top choices.

What Veeam Brings To The Table

The latest introduces a new layer of security and ransomware protection for enterprises. It addresses concerns on data security, malware detection, automated recovery, and hybrid cloud capabilities.

Veeam offers the flexibility to backup and restore data across different environments, and . You can use Veeam to back up object storage data to any desired location. This gives more flexibility and control over your strategy and protects data from disasters, corruption, or ransomware attacks.

The empowers organizations to:

1. Be Vigilant: The backup process uses an AI-powered built-in malware detection engine to detect and identify cyber threats. This new feature enables your team to perform proactive threat hunting, as backup anomalies are instantly reported in your SIEM tools and . If needed, reach out for a second opinion from your trusted SIEM tool before you recover, using the new . This API allows your SIEM tool to mark recovery points as clean, infected, or suspicious.
2. Be Protected: The Veeam Data platform update 23H2 enables advanced for secure data storage and transfer. This way, only you can decrypt your data, even if stolen. You can also make your backups immutable, even by ransomware, to restore your data from a safe backup during an attack. Furthermore, disconnect backups from the network and limit access only to  authorized users to prevent ransomware from reaching and compromising your backups.
3. Be Resilient: technology helps you minimize downtime and data loss. Whether your environment is on-premises, cloud, or hybrid, you have the luxury of choosing the best recovery method for your data – from granular to full – and restore operations from any point in time.

The presents a responsive suite of data security features to prepare organizations for worst-case scenarios, including the ransomware.

Final Thoughts

As a billion dollar industry, ransomware attacks cause devastating consequences for enterprise data and operations. To protect against such threats, organizations require a flexible and resilient backup solution. Veeam’s latest Data Protection update is a reliable security platform that provides a comprehensive solution to combat ransomware.

With Veeam, you can face a sea of cyber challenges with confidence. Contact us today to learn how we can help you implement Veeam’s Data Protection solution.

Next Steps: Download our tech brief titled It dives into the five steps required for a proactive and secure backup strategy.

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In the fast-moving world of data security, a resilient and dependable backup solution is an absolute necessity. For more than a decade, and Veeam have teamed up to offer top-notch products that communicate seamlessly together. The two have harnessed their expertise to combine their highly differentiated products into scalable and cost-effective backup solutions, thus enabling enterprises to achieve the performance and efficiency needed to realize their backup, recovery, and disaster recovery (DR) goals.

What exactly makes this partnership so unique? We explore how solution has revolutionized data backup, recovery, and disaster recovery.

ExaGrid And Veeam: A Symbiotic Relationship

ExaGrid’s appliances are designed to work seamlessly with Veeam’s Data Mover, thanks to the ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover. This integration adds a range of advanced features, including:

• Sure Backup
• Virtual Lab
• Instant Virtual Machine (VM) Recovery
• Data Replication And Copying

This combination of features and teamwork between the two partners sets them apart in the competitive world of backup solutions in several ways:

1. Decreased Long-Term Retention Costs

The , when used in tandem with the Veeam Availability Suite, provides a powerful solution for businesses to significantly cut their costs. This combination is renowned for its ability to deliver the industry’s fastest backups and restores, reducing these processes from minutes to mere seconds.

Combining Veeam backups with ExaGrid’s Landing Zone, the ExaGrid-Veeam Accelerated Data Mover and ExaGrid’s support of Veeam Scale-Out Backup Repositories (SOBR) significantly optimizes data management. This means ExaGrid leverages Veeam deduplication and dedupe-friendly compression to achieve faster data restores and virtual machine boots. This process reduces the deduplication ratio from 2:1 to an impressive 14:1, resulting in substantial storage and cost savings for long-term retention.

Furthermore, this solution features a scalable storage system that can seamlessly grow alongside your expanding data needs. This empowers businesses to efficiently manage data and avoid excessive storage costs.

2. Fast Backup And Recovery

Speed is of the essence when it comes to data backup and recovery. With Veeam-to-Veeam communication, data is moved and restored 30% faster than other methods. Even the process of starting virtual machines takes seconds to a few minutes at most.

Additionally, with the release of , the Veeam Fast Clone feature is now running 30 times faster than the previous version. Its capability to perform synthetic full backups on ExaGrid appliances is an innovative advancement.

This means that when you need to resynthesize synthetic full backups into ExaGrid’s Landing Zone, the process is now incredibly fast. This translates to having the quickest data restores and virtual machine boots in the entire industry.

3. Scalability And Cloud-Readiness

The growing volume of data we produce poses a significant challenge for companies struggling to maintain an efficient data backup system. However, the ExaGrid-Veeam solution provides a solution to this problem with future-proof scalability. In other words, as your data grows, your backup system won’t be left behind.

The beauty of this scalability is its simplicity. When your data expands, just add another ExaGrid appliance to your setup to make more storage space. This way, your backup system can smoothly handle your growing data needs without any trouble or complex adjustments.

4. Comprehensive Security And Ransomware Protection

ExaGrid and Veeam understand that keeping your data safe is a top priority. They’ve put in place a viable architecture to protect your information. This system includes various important features, such as:

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Only the people who should have access to your data can get to it.
• Two-Factor Authentication: Now, it will be extra hard for anyone to access your data without your permission.
• Secure HTTPS And TLS Certificates: This feature keeps your data safe during transmission.
• IP-Based Whitelists: With this option, only trusted devices are allowed to connect to network.
• Extensive Monitoring: This ensures your data is consistently protected on all your devices.
• Self-Encrypting Drives And WAN Encryption: This extra layer of security provides added layers of protection. Think of it like putting another lock on the door to your data.

This combination of security measures makes the ExaGrid-Veeam solution a robust defense against potential threats, like ransomware.

Final Thoughts

ExaGrid and Veeam’s extensive partnership offers a top-tier backup solution that’s three times faster than competitors. It includes maintenance, support, and serviceability without hidden costs, unifying premier products and IT architectures seamlessly.

If data management and protection is part of your business strategy, contact WEI to kickstart your data and disaster recovery journey. It’s time to elevate your data protection with tiered backup storage for improved performance, cost efficiency, and scalability.

Next Steps: Download our tech brief titled It dives into the five steps required for a proactive and secure backup strategy.

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In the era of remote working cybersecurity risks, evolving IoT, increased cloud services, and revolving ransomware, businesses require reliable IT infrastructure to protect their data and ensure continuity of operations. According to Veeam’s report, 79% of IT leaders see a “Protection Gap” between tolerable data loss and how IT protects their data. Addressing this gap usually involves an upgrade of various disaster recovery services for production and protection. To tackle this concern, enterprises are better off subscribing to (DRaaS) rather than for cost efficiency, scalability, and reliability.

How Does DRaaS Work?

DRaaS is an effective cloud computing solution that provides organizations with a comprehensive and cost-effective way to back up their data remotely. Traditional disaster recovery (DR) solutions require companies to buy extra equipment and pay for maintenance costs, which is often expensive. DRaaS is different because it is economical, scalable, and reliable.

DRaaS typically involves the use of multiple cloud providers to replicate data between physical or virtual locations for disaster recovery purposes. This ensures the organizations’ continuous operations through regular backups of data and the ability to quickly deploy the necessary resources when needed, thus reducing downtime and costs in the event of an emergency.

Why Choose DRaaS For Your Business?

Through the expertise of third-party providers, DRaaS is an ideal solution for businesses looking for cost-efficient, scalable, reliable and secure data protection platforms during security threats or natural disasters – making it the ideal choice for enhancing any enterprise’s data protection and disaster recovery strategy. Our team has identified three effective reasons for your IT and business executives to consider DRaaS:

Cost Efficiency Of DRaaS

DRaaS is a better and more financially responsible alternative to traditional disaster recovery solutions. By leveraging DRaaS, companies don’t have to deal with additional equipment or maintenance costs, contributing to significant operational savings.

Based on Trends in Data Protection report, businesses that employ DRaaS protocols have the potential to save up to 70% on their IT budget. Apart from savings, DRaaS guarantees the recovery of data in the event of a disaster, which ensures business continuity. Therefore, DRaaS offers a reliable and cost-efficient way for companies to stay afloat, sustainably recover from disasters, and maintain their operations in the long run.

Scalability Of DRaaS

Traditional disaster recovery solutions require companies to invest in extra equipment and pay for maintenance costs, which become quite pricey during scale-ups. DRaaS allows businesses to scale their storage space based on changing needs. This approach utilizes scalable storage, meaning that instead of requiring the purchase of hardware and maintenance, businesses adjust storage based on their growth.

Furthermore, DRaaS enhances security measures by ensuring the safety of business data in the event of a disaster or threat. This allows businesses to remain confident in the security of their sensitive information. DRaaS provides peace of mind and eliminates the stress of data recovery and protection.

Reliability And Security Of DRaaS

Ransomware attacks affect more than annually. With data protection becoming a priority, DRaaS is a relevant solution to ensure continuous availability during a malicious event. DRaaS is a modern data backup solution that offers optimal resource allocation. DRaaS protects your data with advanced encryption and cloud computing technologies, providing an additional layer of security.

In case of a disaster, recovery time objectives (RTOs) are crucial to business continuity. Unlike traditional DR solutions, DRaaS guarantees a significant reduction of RTOs from hours to minutes or even seconds. Additionally, the built-in multi-site redundancy and uptime guarantees of DRaaS streamline workflows, minimizing the disruption to your enterprise’s productivity. As such, DRaaS is an instrumental tool for businesses with limited resources for data protection plans.

Final Thoughts

With its secure and automated backup capabilities, DRaaS provides an insurance policy against any potential threats or crises. ensures data is protected and ready to be quickly restored in the event of an emergency. Companies of all sizes benefit from using DRaaS to keep valuable data safe and secure.

At WEI, we highly recommend this option as a vital component of any business continuity and disaster recovery plan. If you’d like to assess how a DRaaS strategy will work for you, contact us today.

Next Steps: Download our tech brief titled It dives into the five steps required for a proactive and secure backup strategy.

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says that 64% of IT leaders cite improved data security for their organization as their top objective over the next 12 months. And for good reason. As technology continues to evolve, it’s not a matter of if an enterprise will have a ransomware attack but when it will happen. With technological advances, it’s not just enterprises that benefit, cyber criminals do as well.

Because of this assumed risk, it is not enough to only have the right technology in place; your enterprise must have a tried and true disaster recovery (DR) strategy laid out ahead of time. complements industry best practices to provide your enterprise with the strategy and technology it needs to safeguard against ransomware attacks that are costly to your data and public reputation.

Five Ransomware Best Practices

When putting together your enterprise’s disaster recovery strategy, here are the five best practices to protect against ransomware.

1. Identify: Determine what environments exist, the risks associated with those environments, and how they impact your enterprise.
2. Protect: Understand what you’re protecting your enterprise against so you can develop appropriate safeguards and contain the impact of potential ransomware attacks.
3. Detect: Accurately and efficiently identifying ransomware will help ensure your team creates an effective and timely action plan.
4. Respond: Develop and implement actions to take in a detected cybersecurity incident. The faster and more effectively you respond to a threat, the faster you can stop it in its tracks, mitigate its damage, and reduce any potential financial impact.
5. Recover: In the event of an attack, timely recovery to normal operations reduces the impact on the enterprise. Make sure you maintain plans for resilience and restore any impaired capabilities or services due to a

Your Enterprise Disaster Recovery Strategy

Your enterprise’s disaster recovery strategies must be thoroughly documented and tested to ensure their effectiveness. This is something Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator does automatically. With this tool, your mission-critical workloads with near-zero recovery point objectives (RPOs) to applications that have been neglected due to a lack of resources can be included in an automated disaster recovery process.

By deploying DR Orchestrator as part of your enterprise disaster recovery plan, your cybersecurity team will have the improved ability to:

• Reduce Risk. DR Orchestrator is a simple, powerful tool that has proven its ability to manage a disaster recovery plan through testing and documenting risks.
• Save Time. Free your IT teams to focus on other mission-critical areas in your enterprise. DR Orchestrator can automate the most time-intensive aspects of disaster recovery planning, such as creating and updating documentation and testing.
• Restore Confidently. From a single app to an entire site, with DR Orchestrator, you can meet RPO and recovery time objective requirements with one-click failover, failback, and restores.

Veeam’s DR Orchestrator Capabilities

DR Orchestrator’s robust feature set reduces risk, saves downtime, and restores data with:

1. Automatic documentation. Generate and create dynamic disaster recovery documentation to prove readiness and compliance.
2. Automated testing. With zero-impact disaster recovery tests, scheduled or on demand, you ensure required recovery time objectives and RPOs can be met.
3. Application verification. After a recovery event, common enterprise applications are examined to verify they are running as expected.
4. Role-based access control. You control the level of access app owners and operations teams have.
5. Instant test lab. With the instant test lab, you can utilize disaster recovery resources for patch testing or anything else without impacting production.
6. Wizard-driven planning. Quickly build comprehensive disaster recovery strategy plans for apps and sites that are automatically updated and verified.
7. One-click recovery. With just one click, you can recover single apps or an entire site from anywhere.

Put Veeam DR Orchestrator To Work For Your Enterprise

With comprehensive support for enterprise applications and infrastructure, Veeam DR Orchestrator can take your disaster recovery strategy to the next level with its robust suite of features. WEI will help you through the process and create a customized solution to protect your enterprise against ransomware. Contact WEI today to get started.

Next Steps: Download our NEW tech brief titled It further explains the 5 mentioned steps for a proactive and secure backup strategy.

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There used to be a single test to determine the effectiveness of your data backup strategy. It centered around successfully restoring your data from a backup, and you would rest easy knowing that you would, in theory, recover from a data loss event. It was really that simple. Still, there were some security concerns as you did not want just anyone accessing the backups who might accidently (or inadvertently) delete them. There was also the threat of confiscating a backup tape containing sensitive or valuable data by an imposter. For the most part, the data backup system was out of sight and out of mind for everyone other than the backup administrator.

Ransomware Backup Protection Systems are Now Actively Targeted

Ransomware attacks involve the loss of data, thus giving data backup systems a critical role in the battle against increasingly rampant malware. As you can imagine, the evolving nature of ransomware eventually changed the practice referenced at the start of this article. While some organizations lacked a working backup, those that had implemented and operationalized a proven system were able to elude the extortion payment.

Despite a commitment to implementing adequate backup strategies, many company leaders still consider paying the ransom. The decision to do so involves more than simply regaining access to a company’s data. Often, it is looked at as a business decision in which the opportunity cost of spending days or even weeks rebuilding virtual data stores and recovering data directories can exceed the ransom itself. While government authorities continue to discourage paying the ransom, the opportunity to recover quickly often makes practical business sense.

As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for ransomware gangs to learn that a data backup can often be the one thing holding them back from a handsome payday. That’s why backup systems have a prominent bullseye on them now. Take out the backups, and the odds are in favor of the attackers. But if your cyber security team holds the line of attack against your backups, the odds are suddenly back in your favor. That’s also where your ransomware backup protection strategy plays such a pivotal role.

While there are still plenty of threats out there involving less sophisticated attackers who look for easy prey and quick payouts using Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) applications, the large-scale ransomware attacks we read about in the headlines every week are carried about by highly experienced hackers using well-coordinated attack strategies. It is these high-caliber ransomware organizations that you must prepare for.

Ransomware Attacks are Performed in Stages

Infiltrating your network is only the first step of a multipronged ransomware attack. Attackers now spend weeks or even months silently observing your systems to not only find where your data resides, but to also discover how it is protected. Unnerving, isn’t it? It is during this undetected period of observation that the attackers decide how to best eliminate your data backup system.

You may be surprised to know that these ransomware groups are more familiar with the popular backup systems on the market than the customers that use them. It’s in the best interest of the attacker to understand how to eliminate your backups, whether that means deleting, corrupting, or adjusting them. Once your backups are eliminated, the next target is your virtual infrastructure, which they intend to destroy as well. After they shut down your servers, they begin the process of encrypting your data stores. For VMware environments, the objective is then to destroy the vCenter and encrypt the VMware data stores. They use similar strategies to take down Hyper-V or Nutanix architectures as well.

Follow Recommended Cybersecurity Practices for Enhanced Ransomware Backup Protection

Properly securing your backups starts with implementing the best security standards. While air gapping is often discussed, do you know what that strategy entails? As a backup/recovery expert, I serve as WEI’s solutions architect. I regularly conduct workshops throughout the year, and recently discussed the many challenges at hand and how to prepare for them. I also identified prominent mistakes that we continue to find in real world environments.

Here are some of the top mistakes that internal cybersecurity professionals make all too often. While my discussion exclusively involved Veeam solutions, these mistakes also apply to other backup platforms:

1. Remoting into the server that hosts your backup solution: Never RDP into your backup server as these sessions can easily be compromised. Instead, use the backup system’s remote console software so that you are not logging onto the actual server.
2. Joining your backup system to Microsoft Active Directory: Besides targeting your backup system, hackers are diligently working to crack your AD. Once compromised, they can get access to privileged accounts with administrator rights to your backups.
3. Installing your backup software on a virtual server: One of the primary purposes of Veeam is to back up your VMs. If the hackers take out your virtual infrastructure, your backup system is gone, too. Consider using a physical server to host your backup solution whenever possible.
4. Only relying on passwords to protect log-on processes: Many organizations use multifactor authentication to secure their O365 logons, yet solely rely on password authentication to protect their backup logons. Sometimes this is due to the outdated attitude of “it’s only the backup server.” In this new era of ransomware, the backup server is one of the most important systems in your security arsenal. It is no longer “just the backup server.”
5. Leaving the local firewall disabled because they are unsure of what ports the hosted backup solution requires: They disable the firewall to install the new backup solution with the intention of properly configuring it at a later point. This leaves a wide-open opportunity for attack avenues that hackers easily take advantage of. Take care of your firewall configurations immediately!

Win Each Malware Battle with Robust Ransomware Backup Protection

Ransomware is a war, but it is a winnable war if you have the correct enterprise cybersecurity strategies in place. Within this war, there are battles you don’t have to fight alone as WEI’s team of backup and cybersecurity specialists can help outline a ransomware backup protection plan that fits your particular risk environment and budget. You may contact our experts at your convenience.

Next Steps: If you want to discover more proven tips and strategies to securing your backup solutions, we have published a fresh whitepaper titled, ““

The post Solidify Your Ransomware Backup Protection Strategy appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

Keeping up with the latest advances in IT technology is a task in and of itself. Once you add implementation and administering each new solution, it can become overwhelming. However, despite the hassle of upgrading, it’s a necessary to ensure that each part of your IT infrastructure is performing as optimally as possible.

After all, even if every other part of your architecture is current, just one piece with outdated software or hardware will bring the rest down and restrict performance. To combat this, regular upgrades are necessary, especially when it comes to protecting your corporate data.

Legacy backup solutions can’t keep up

When it comes to backup and disaster recovery (BUDR), there is no such thing as “good enough.” An outdated solution, which can no longer provide the coverage you need, will inevitably fail when the worst happens, leaving IT with lost data and in hot water with enterprise leaders, employees and clients.

Legacy backup solutions were designed with the past in mind, and with recent advances in cloud computing, there in an undeniable limit to what they can be adapted to. In addition, these BUDR solutions often feature slow recovery processes that are too long and labor intensive for today’s enterprise, which need to be back up and ready to go in minutes, not hours or days.

The fact of the matter is that enterprises cannot achieve the increased IT efficiencies that can be gained from utilizing the cloud, while still making use of legacy backup solutions.

For those enterprises already making use of for its simplistic and easy to manage infrastructure, the natural pick for BUDR is Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV.

Find Simplicity With Veeam Backup For Nutanix AHV

When selecting IT solutions, it’s important to consider the big picture. Will the solutions work well together? Will their features complement each other, or will they create management difficulty and unnecessary complexity?

The bottom line is just picking the best products in each category isn’t enough, they need to work together, or their individual potentials will be wasted. This is why solutions that are specifically tooled to work in tandem and benefit from each other are so valuable. is the perfect example.

Individually, both are industry leading solutions. is the innovator of hyperconverged infrastructure that set about to simplify IT infrastructure by bringing computer, storage, networking and virtualization into a single stack. The Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) is the company’s native hypervisor solution that integrates with its enterprise cloud OS stack.

is the global leader of backup and replication software that provides comprehensive backups solutions for any work load across all environments, whether it be cloud, virtual or physical. Recent features for Veeam Backup include a next-generation instant recovery engine and a new intelligent immutability mode for Cloud Tier, offering increased protection from ransomware attacks. Veeam also offers unmatched cloud portability, giving IT the ability to back up and recover to, from and within the cloud, saving time and resources.

Together, as Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV, they create a perfect mesh solution that infuses data resiliency, protection and universal access of your data and your Nutanix environment.

Increased mobility and agility

In this digital age, backup solutions need to be able to keep up with the rest of the enterprise, no matter where employees are located. To this end, Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV offers entire virtual machine (VM) restore, allowing IT to restore any virtual, physical or cloud workload. In addition, the solution offers instant recovery to your entire environment, including VMs, to offer extra speed and mobility.

By implementing Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV, IT can reduce downtime and interruptions, promoting productivity and efficiency across the entire enterprise.

Are you ready for Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV?

Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV offers enterprises the availability, simplicity and scalability they need to be successful. By emulating Nutanix’s intuitive management and user interface designs, and integrating Veeam’s fast and reliable application-aware, image-based backups, the solution offers the best of both worlds, boosting performance and productivity.

NEXT STEPS: Contact the WEI team if you have questions about how to get the most value from either solution, or ask us how our customers are using both Veeam and Nutanix to drive their business forward.

If you’re interested in further reading about backup, we invite you to read our white paper, Backup and DR for the Cloud Generation. Click below!

The post Why Modern Infrastructure Needs A Modern Backup Solution appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

When it comes to pieces of the IT puzzle where skimping or going with the option that’s just “good enough” will inevitably come back to haunt you, backup and disaster recovery tops the list.

, a global leader in backup and replication software, and , an innovator of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), have teamed up to offer Veeam Backup for Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) giving enterprises data resiliency, protection and unparalleled data access, regardless of the workload type or location.

Before we jump into the additional benefits of this partner solution, let’s talk a bit about each of them individually.

Veeam Backup Replication V10

Veeam’s is an industry-leading BUDR solution that offers availability for cloud, virtual, and physical workloads though a simple management console. Backups are easy to recover, reducing operational costs and getting enterprises back on their feet faster.

In their latest update, Veeam added a host of , including network attached storage (NAS) capabilities for data protection and recovery, storage snapshots support, and a forever-incremental backup engine.

To help enterprises defend again ransomware attacks, Veeam also added an immutable backups feature, which protects recent backup copies from unauthorized changes or deletions though S3 Object Lock.

Nutanix AHV

is a native hypervisor solution which integrates with Nutanix’s enterprise Cloud OS stack. It offers secure, enterprise-grade virtualization to give enterprises an easy way to manage storage, with the added the benefits of built-in security practices, low operational costs and optimal performance for even the most demanding applications.

To reduce the IT burden, Nutanix prioritized ease-of-use, allowing administrators to effortlessly manage storage and virtualization all from one place.

Use cases include server visualization for Linux distributions and Microsoft server and desktop operating systems, VDI and DaaS, infrastructure and databases, and remote or branch offices.

The perfect backup and data protection pair: Veeam backup for Nutanix AHV

While both solutions are effective options on their own, combining them offers enterprises a new, agentless approach for virtualized environments.

Management functionality, including job management scheduling, data compression and duplication, retention policies, and other backup and restore activities, is conducted within the AHV Proxy, leaving the Veeam backup server to operate as a repository, reducing overall complexity.

In the event of a BUDR emergency, the restoration begins with the backup data, provided by the AHV Proxy though the use of snapshots. This allows for complete file and disk level restoration and the simplicity of the solution’s design guarantees fast recovery.

The flexibility of Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV offers a host of different options for backups, including converting them into VMDK, VHD or VHDX formats for use in various virtual or testing environments. Likewise, the unmatched performance of the solution and instant recovery options reduces disruptions and downtime, ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted end-user experience.

With the recent updates to Veeam Backup Replication, Backup for Nutanix AHV also has , including:

• Console integration which displays job status, start/stop/disable jobs, and the option to launch the proxy web user interface.
• No additional licenses are required for the proxy appliance as the license management is solely performed by the Veeam Backup Replication server.
• New VeeamZIP support for AHV workloads, easily accessed through the Veeam Backup Replication console.

Additionally, the restore features of the solution also underwent improvements, including the addition of live file-level recovery through AHC FLR Appliance, entire VM restoration though Veeam’s universal VMK backup file format, AHV snapshot restores and the addition of instant VM recovery.

has also been integrated within the solution, as well as support, which provides protected VM reports on AHV backups.

Ready to discover the benefits of Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV?

Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV offers enterprises a way to modernize data centers through increase agility and simplicity with the confidence is data is highly available for your enterprise users. The solution is designed for ease-of-use and centralized management, reducing IT costs and time spent administering backups.

NEXT STEPS: Have you integrated cloud in your backup and DR strategy? You might be interested in exploring our white paper, , which covers:

• Best practices for protecting and restoring your data
• Where HA and replication technologies fit in your organization
• Questions to consider when switching to a cloud solution

Read the white paper today and please contact us to talk to our backup experts with any questions about modernizing your backup or improving your data protection strategy.

The post Why Veeam Backup for Nutanix AHV is a Beautiful Thing appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

In order for developers to keep up with the speed of business, new innovations in storage, backup, and are being rolled out at a breakneck pace. To stay competitive, enterprises must adopt these new methods and technologies for faster restores and greater opportunities to leverage the true value of data across their organization.

When fast isn’t fast enough

In recent months, an increasing number of legacy disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) architectures are being replaced with faster, more modern flash-to-flash-to-cloud (F2F2C) technologies across industries. This change is being pushed by the need for more than just a backup: today’s enterprises need to rapidly restore critical data in the right contexts for a competitive advantage. Any time taken to backup or restore data can become a business challenge – and those that can do it fastest are better positioned to drive business value.

F2F2C is designed for the scale and use cases modern enterprise companies now require. Unlike tape-based library systems, F2F2C architecture helps organizations modernize their data protection while putting them in a position for future innovations depending on how they leverage their IT for business value.

What is Flash-to-Flash-to-Cloud (F2F2C)?

Flash-to-Flash-to-Cloud helps companies recover data rapidly, save money via cloud economics, and streamline data reuse for workloads and business priorities. It helps organizations address the demands of backup, analytics, artificial intelligence, and regulatory compliance. One study published by 451 Research declared the performance boost provided by this all-flash model to be “tenfold or greater,” and “one of the most significant changes in recent IT history.”

F2F2C’s strength comes from its hybrid approach to data availability and protection, featuring both on-premises flash for greater agility and efficiency, and safe, cost-effective public clouds for long-term storage and security. Flash-based solutions are increasingly being used for mission-critical applications, combined with the more affordable, flexible, and scalable storage model offered by the public cloud. Together, the combination allows for rapid recovery during regular operations and experimentation, with resources in the cloud readily available if on-premises resources are not.

How your enterprise can benefit from Flash-to-Flash-to-Cloud (F2F2C)

Compared to storage and recovery methods previously used by enterprises, F2F2C provides faster recovery times which allows more regularity and re-purposing for new business initiatives in next-generation IT environments. Other features include:

• Instant VM and granular data recovery on demand
• By deploying one platform, you can power all data-intensive workloads – from backup to

F2F2C supports the always-on enterprises of the future, anticipating that most environments will be virtualized and users will require instant recovery to meet both performance and customer needs. Increasingly stringent regulatory requirements will also be met with F2F2C’s scalability, reduced silos, and more opportunities to segregate environments.

Nearly 60 percent of enterprises moving toward a environment are leveraging both on-premise systems and off-premise cloud. Those among them to adopt strategies will enjoy improved local performance, more sophisticated management capabilities, greater availability, and reduced redundancy compared to their competitors.

Minimize downtime with Veeam Availability Suite and Pure Storage

recognizes the challenges faced by companies in enabling the “always-on enterprise” model that runs 24/7/365. To make things easier, Veeam is helping companies meet recovery time and point objectives (RTPO) of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data.

, which includes , offers a new kind of solution that delivers the following features:

• High-speed recovery
• Data loss avoidance
• Verified recoverability
• Complete visibility
• and much more…

It does so by leveraging virtualization, storage, and cloud services that enable the modern data center to help IT organizations save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs.

When paired with Pure Storage’s end-to-end data platform, companies can begin to push the boundaries of what’s possible. The platform allows the consolidation of workloads without sacrificing performance while achieving 100 percent virtualization with confidence. Pure Storage enables scale from hundreds to thousands of VMs without disruption, and is completely managed inside vCenter.

provides fast and reliable block storage for your production data, as well as local snapshots for rapid restore, while FlashBlade enables you to store large data sets with a small data center footprint and restore them rapidly.

Work with WEI on upgrading your storage and recovery

Veeam Availability Suite with Pure Storage could be exactly what your business needs to maximize their data and push the boundaries of industry innovation. Contact WEI today to begin a conversation about building your custom F2F2C solution.

NEXT STEPS: Learn best practices for backup, recovery, and DR in this hybrid world of on-premises and cloud by reading one of our most popular white papers. Click the button below to get started.

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Ransomware is a profitable criminal endeavor (a 2016 survey estimated $1 billion each year, but current numbers are surely much higher) by individuals who don’t hesitate to damage public institutions and private enterprises, and they’re not going anywhere.

What’s needed to fend off this Ransomware epidemic?

Best practices and tools to:

• Prevent or mitigate attacks
• Protect data and backup data
• Recover reliably

In this blog article we’ll take a look at how you can find and implement those practices with Veeam’s platform.

What is the business impact of a ransomware attack?

Data and systems unavailability triggers a domino effect of other technical and business consequences. Research by ESG found that 71 percent of surveyed organizations could not tolerate more than one hour of downtime for their high-priority applications, which are frequently the ones targeted by ransomware.

In addition, from a recovery point objective (RPO) perspective, 51 percent of organizations surveyed report that losing just 15 minutes of data from their high-priority applications is the maximum they can tolerate without significant business impact. This downtime and data loss can take months or years to recover from, and that’s before considering the loss of customer confidence and direct revenue.

Best practices and technologies for ransomware attacks

To fend off , there are recommended cybersecurity and backup and recovery best practices.

End-User Education, Intrusion Testing, and Mock Phishing

Conducted by a third-party cybersecurity partner, these steps are invaluable, especially with less experienced staff.

Email and Web Controls

Given the likelihood of infiltration coming from these areas, controls are crucial. To establish a first line of defense, use tools that can identify and block illegitimate phishing email, scan for known ransomware or malware in emails, and isolate attachments for analysis. This effort should encompass native cloud applications such as Office 365. Web controls can be used to analyze a website’s reputation and block known bad URLs, and they can scan for malicious downloads and browser exploits.

Endpoints

Endpoints are often the attack vector for introducing ransomware, representing a need for a set of robust countermeasures. controls that employ multiple detection technologies to prevent file-based and file-less ransomware, as well as other types of malware, are critical.

Network-based Controls

The effort begins with establishing protection across all ports and protocols, and monitoring all traffic on the physical or virtual network. It can be complemented by detection methods such as sandbox analysis for new and unknown ransomware.

Servers

Servers, especially database servers, have also become targets for ransomware attacks. They require the use of technologies to scan for ransomware and other forms of malware and controls to maintain system integrity. Being diligent about maintaining a patching discipline is a clear best practice, but it comes with an operational impact for many organizations and does not prevent zero-day attacks.

Backup and Recovery

Beyond employing cybersecurity best practices, backup and recovery is an important component to ensuring uptime. Best practices include:

• Training IT staff, especially the backup team, with regular training on security, networking, and best storage practices.
• Following the 3-2-1 rule, which requires three copies of company data be saved on two different media formats, one of which is kept offsite.
• Managing access controls and using different credentials for backup roles and permissions to access the backup application, data store/repository, and network.
• Looking for a solution with behavioral alerting capabilities that can notify an admin about a possible ransomware activity flag.

Veeam’s Hyper-Availability Platform To The Rescue

Veeam’s Hyper-Availability Platform offers data availability to enterprises no matter where the data lives – on-premises, in the core data center, in remote offices, or anywhere in the . It is perfectly suited for ransomware protection with a keen focus on both data centers and endpoints.

On the data center side, Veeam allows organizations to restore data infected by ransomware to a known-good state. End-users can also leverage the Veeam to perform quick and granular restore operations for databases, applications, files, and operating systems.

The suite provides one-click file-restore capabilities for storage snapshots, which can be useful for fast recoveries of critical files. Veeam has also integrated with many storage vendors to accelerate performance and recovery capabilities.

Ransomware is here to stay, be prepared!

Unfortunately, ransomware isn’t going anywhere. As hackers evolve their methods, ransomware will only continue to pose a growing threat to enterprises around the world. The business risk is potentially devastating and needs to be managed with a combination of best practices and the right tools. Contact WEI to begin strengthening your response and protecting your organization today.

NEXT STEPS: Protect your enterprise with network security tips in our tech brief, ‘Using network segmentation to manage malware and ransomware risks’ below!

The post Build Your Ransomware Strategy Before You Need It appeared first on IT Solutions Provider - IT Consulting - Technology Solutions.

If a disaster were to hit your enterprise, would your data be protected? This information is the backbone of your organization so hopefully the answer to the questions is yes. However, if your disaster recovery plan is not what you would like it to be, or if it’s missing all together, it’s not too late to protect your data in the event of disaster.

Firstly, to have an effective disaster recovery plan your enterprise should follow the “3-2-1 rule.” This rule states that you need to keep three copies of your data, on two types of storage, with one copy being off-site. Getting backups off-site can be challenging, but disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) can help.

Why Your Enterprise Needs Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)

As explains disaster recovery as a service, “It is the replication and& hosting of physical or by a third party to provide in the event of a man-made or natural catastrophe.”

Where backup as a service (BaaS) requires you to pick and choose which files to store in the case of an emergency, disaster recovery as a service does not. DRaaS automatically copies and stores data in the cloud, allowing your employees to access the data they need to do their jobs even while in the middle of the disaster. This ability to work during a failure saves your enterprise from needing to shut down in the event of a catastrophe.

Disaster recovery as a service also does not require your enterprise to continually send files for backup, a requirement for BaaS. What does this mean? In the event that something happens to your servers, the data stored with a DRaaS provider, such as Veeam, is the most up-to-date information available.

Another obvious benefit of using disaster recovery as a service is that it saves your organization money and resources. A traditional DR plan involves a secondary physical location where you house a data center where your data is copied. Running a second site is costly and requires the time of your IT team to maintain – time and money that can be used elsewhere when using DRaaS.

According to , DRaaS removes the need for the following expenses:

• Owning or leasing space for a secondary data center
• Monthly costs associated with power, cooling, and internet bandwidth at the secondary site
• Purchase or lease of servers, storage, and network equipment for the secondary site
• Travel to and from data centers or on-site staff at the secondary data center

Veeam: An outstanding DRaaS Solution

WEI works with only the best in class tech partners to configure what fits your enterprise’s needs, such as . The is a backup software suite that combines the award-winning data protection and virtualization management expertise of Veeam Backup Replication and VeeamONE for VMware vSphere.

The Veeam Availability Suite provides organizations with five key capabilities that enable the “Always-On” Business:

• Rapid recovery of what you want, the way you want it
• Near-continuous data protection and fast disaster recovery
• Guaranteed recovery of file, application, or virtual server
• Backups that create an exact copy of the production environment
• Proactive monitoring and alerting of issues before impact

Veeam Availability Suite also provides monitoring and alerting tools so you can discover and be alerted to issues in your IT environment before they have a significant impact, and gives you complete visibility of the Veeam backup infrastructure.

Application-item recovery is simple and fast. Veeam allows you to zero in on exactly what you need to recover, and restore individual items directly from your backups.

By using a DRaaS provider like Veeam in partnership with WEI, you can rest assured that your vital information is protected in the event of a catastrophe. Need help figuring out which DRaaS solution is best for your enterprise? Contact us today for a personalized evaluation of your disaster recovery strategy.

NEXT STEPS: Want to learn more about Disaster Recovery as a Service? Read our white paper, , to get started.

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