In early April, I attended “Cloud Field Day,” where Ryan Lefevre, Veritas architect, demonstrated CloudPoint to the delegates. Afterward, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Ryan about CloudPoint’s evolution, how it’s being received, and what the future may bring. Listen to our full conversation in Episode 42: CloudPoint Highlights and Key Takeaways from Cloud Field Day 3.
Evolution of CloudPoint
Ryan has worked as a CloudPoint architect since the product first launched. Today, he continues to steer CloudPoint development.
In spite of having written the first line of code for CloudPoint, Ryan won’t take credit for inventing it. “It was an idea that had been bouncing around for quite a while,” he notes. “When it landed in my lap, I decided to run with it. I went off and worked on it for a few months and from there, it grew into a product.”
At the heart of CloudPoint is the problem of protecting data across different platforms and architectures. Ryan explains, “Cloud, on-premises, applications, arrays—it’s all different, but it all needs to be protected. The goal was to make that task simple for users.”
Before CloudPoint, users would protect this data in a variety of ways, depending on the environment in which it was held. “The responsibility to protect data didn’t go away as different forms of infrastructure emerged. As a result, things could get complicated—and expensive—very quickly.”
CloudPoint Sweet Spot
Fortunately, Veritas has a history of managing data across heterogeneous environments, including different infrastructures, operating systems, arrays and clouds. It’s our sweet spot
CloudPoint leverages this sweet spot by simplifying data protection for users. Ryan notes, “CloudPoint handles all the details. The client doesn’t have to know what’s underneath their data. They can simply say point to what they want to protect and specify a schedule and the number of copies. CloudPoint does it all for them.”
CloudPoint also plays an important role in data discovery. “We discover as much about the customer’s environment as we possibly can including the relationships between assets. The user doesn’t have to get bogged down in those onerous details. They can just feel confident that their data is being protected.”
The Experience of Presenting at Cloud Field Day
I asked Ryan for his take on his CloudPoint presentation at Cloud Field Day.
He was struck by the crowd’s enthusiastic reaction to the ability to eliminate rigid backup architecture deployments and use application-consistent snapshots instead. “With our approach, the data doesn’t need to be moved elsewhere, which isn’t the case in many other data protection solutions. The conference delegates were particularly receptive to this capability.”
CloudPoint’s classification feature also strongly resonated with the crowd. Classification allows users to identify data within CloudPoint that has personally identifiable information (PII). “Once PII is identified, users can decide what to do with it. This feature is critically important today as new data protection laws and regulations emerge. The delegates immediately recognized its value.”
Cloud Field Day was an excellent opportunity to get wider perspectives on a solution that Ryan has worked with so closely. “Getting feedback directly from the delegates was very cool. It felt great to show off our product and have them respond so positively.”
Simplicity is Key
This positive response to CloudPoint is no anomaly. Whenever we participate in Cloud Field Day, or similar events, CloudPoint gets a lot of positive feedback. In particular, enterprises appreciate the simplicity of the user interface (below), its functionality, and the ability to protect across different environments.
General dashboard:
Policy scheduler:
Ryan agrees. “Simplicity is really important, especially as you proliferate across multiple clouds over time. Managing data is only going to get more complicated. Building in that simplicity from the beginning, and maintaining it as we go forward, is very important.”
Future of CloudPoint
I asked Ryan what we can expect from CloudPoint in the future. He promised more good things to come. He notes, “You can look forward to seeing more features, more cloud support, and more integration. Stay tuned!”
Listen to the Podcast
Visit iTunes to listen to this ‘Voice of Veritas’ podcast, “Episode 42: CloudPoint Highlights and Key Takeaways from Cloud Field Day 3” for more of our discussion. Take the next step to simplifying your multi-cloud backup and learn more about CloudPoint.
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