Commvault Launches New Solution, Makes Major Announcements in Flagship Event

Commvault, a leading provider of cyber resilience and data protection solutions for the hybrid cloud, announced on Commvault SHIFT the availability of Cloud Rewind™ on the Commvault Cloud platform, along with game-changing collaborations with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Pure Storage. Commvault SHIFT is Commvault’s premier cyber resiliency event that helps organisations embrace cyber readiness.

Cloud Rewind: Changing the Dynamics of Recovery

Cloud Rewind is a unique offering integrates cloud-native distributed application recovery and rebuild capabilities from the Appranix acquisition and gives cloud-first organisations a secret weapon to transform their cyber resilience capabilities.

Today, a typical enterprise organisation may use as many as 3,711 cloud applications spanning various services like finance, HR, and operations. After an attack, organisations often cannot resume “business-as-usual” operations until many of those applications are rebuilt in a step-by-step, systematic, time-consuming way. The majority of enterprises report that it takes more than a week to return to normal operations, according to Commvault’s latest research. That is simply too long. Cloud Rewind changes all that.

Cloud Rewind offers a truly unique approach that transforms and simplifies cloud cyber recoveries. It is designed to quickly restore an organisation’s entire cloud application and data environment—including all the necessary cloud infrastructure configurations—in a highly automated way. By combining data recovery with cloud-native application and infrastructure rebuild automation, Cloud Rewind helps customers get back to business within minutes after a cloud services outage or ransomware attack.

“What we are doing with Cloud Rewind is unlike anything offered on the market today. In the ransomware era, recovering data is important, but it’s table stakes,” said Brian Brockway, CTO at Commvault. “We’re ushering in an entirely new chapter in cyber resilience that not only expedites data recovery, but recovery of cloud applications. This is the gold standard in recovery for a cloud-first world.”

Advanced Cloud Rewind Capabilities

Cloud Rewind introduces an advanced set of unique capabilities designed to help businesses bounce back from cyber incidents with exceptional speed and efficiency.

• Reduce organisational risk with resource discovery. Automatically identifies and catalogues all cloud components in use, offering full visibility into what assets need protection and recovery.
• Reduce operational confusion and toil with app-centric dependency mapping. Analyses and defines the intricate relationships between various cloud components. This feature accelerates the task of piecing these dependencies together after an incident, making the rebuild process much faster. When a system is restored, all connected resources and services are aligned, with little to no human involvement.
• Keep security teams in-sync with drift analysis. Helps return restored systems to their correct state by identifying and correcting any deviations (or “drifts”) from the original configuration. This proactive capability keeps tabs so that restored systems are aligned with their secure and functional state after an incident.
• Automated cyber recovery testing with Recovery-as-Code. Captures not only the data but also the full map of applications, infrastructure, and networking configurations. This means that systems can be restored with their complete operational blueprint intact, reducing guesswork for a thorough recovery.
• Avoid wasting cloud resources with on-demand cloud reconstruction. Puts it all back together, helping customers swiftly rebuild both the data environment and its supporting infrastructure. This provides organisations with a secure and operational cloud environment, ready for immediate use following a disruption.
• Integrated application-centric cyber recovery and disaster recovery. Cloud Rewind integrates with Commvault Cloud data resilience capabilities to help organisations rapidly recover from short-term failures to debilitating cyber-attacks with a few clicks. Cloud Rewind supports all major public and private cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure, for true customer cloud choice.

Commvault’s Cloud Cyber Resilience Platform Now Available in AWS

Commvault also announced at its flagship event that the Commvault® Cloud cyber resilience platform will be available on AWS. The platform, including its widely deployed SaaS offerings (formerly known as Metallic), will provide AWS customers with cutting-edge solutions for automating data protection, advancing cyber recovery, and simplifying the cloud application rebuild process following a cyberattack.

“We are proud to extend the full power of the Commvault Cloud platform and cloud-native solutions to AWS,” said Pranay Ahlawat, Chief Technology and AI Officer at Commvault. “We believe our game-changing technology will empower joint customers to recover faster, mitigate threats more effectively, and enhance their cyber resilience strategies.”

Bringing Game-Changing Cyber Resiliency Features to AWS

Offerings that will be available to AWS customers include

• Cloud Rewind. Based on Appranix technology, Cloud Rewind acts as an AWS time machine. This cloud-native offering lets organisations “rewind” to the last clean copy of their data, recover that data, and automate the cloud application rebuild process so that businesses can get back to normal in minutes versus hours, days, weeks, or months.
• Cyber Resilience for Amazon S3. Through its recent acquisition of Clumio, Commvault will be introducing new technology in the coming months that will also bring time machine capabilities to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) customers. In the event of an attack, this technology will allow S3 customers to revert rapidly back to a clean copy of data that has not been infiltrated with malware.
• Air Gap Protect. This critical last line of defence offering will provide AWS customers with immutable, isolated copies of data in a Commvault tenant, as a service. This offering joins Commvault’s current capabilities for backup and protection in customer-owned tenants. This gives AWS customers another way to keep their data safe and resilient.
• Cleanroom Recovery. Commvault is extending the power of Cleanroom Recovery to AWS. When attacked, this technology will allow organisations to automatically provision recovery infrastructure, allowing recovery to an isolated location in AWS and rapidly restore production workloads. Customers can also conduct forensics in this clean and safe location. For more on Cleanroom Recovery, click here or watch this video.

“By utilising Commvault in our AWS environment, we will be able to greatly enhance our data protection, resiliency, and recovery processes,” said Marek Duranik, Core Infrastructure and Data Storage and Protection Associate Director, Merck, Sharp & Dohme. “Commvault’s orchestration capabilities allow us to automate and streamline recovery in the event of a cyberattack and significantly decrease recovery time. Plus, we get the added benefit of having access to Commvault’s SaaS offerings with full support for both cloud and on-premises infrastructure. Our data and recovery environments will be secure, resilient, and prepared to face potential threats, decreasing our risk and enhancing our ability to quickly respond to cyberattacks.”

Commvault Brings Expanded Backup and More to Google Cloud

The leading provider of cyber resilience and data protection solutions also announced an expanded relationship with Google Cloud with the launch of Commvault® Cloud Backup & Recovery for Google Workspace.

This new solution, which is targeted for availability by the end of the calendar year, will deliver comprehensive, end-to-end enterprise-grade protection for Gmail, Google Drive, and Shared Drives, helping to keep valuable data safe, compliant, and recoverable—all with the simplicity of SaaS. Commvault offers built-in Google Cloud Storage for Google Workspace protection while providing the broadest workload protection across SaaS, hybrid, and cloud native workloads.

Doubling Down on Google Cloud

With support for Google Workspace, Commvault will offer Google Cloud customers new opportunities to safeguard their critical data with enhanced security, streamlined recovery processes, and scalable cloud solutions. Benefits include:

• Comprehensive protection. Google Workspace customers will be able to effortlessly discover active data, rapidly recover from inadvertent or malicious data deletion, and maintain a copy of valuable data in the Commvault Cloud for compliance mandates.
• Multi-layered cyber resilience. With stringent security standards, privacy protocols, and zero-trust access controls built-in, Google Workspace customers will benefit from the multi-layer data protection provided by Commvault Cloud, which can help minimize the impact of cyberattacks and combat today’s data loss threats.
• Simplicity of SaaS. Google Workspace customers will also enjoy the freedom Commvault Cloud provides. Commvault Cloud delivers cost-effective data protection with the simplicity of SaaS, avoiding infrastructure and management overheads with subscription-based licensing including unlimited long-term retention.

Cloud-First Cyber Resilience

Commvault is further expanding its Google Cloud capabilities with Cloud Rewind™, which integrates Appranix’s innovative application rebuild capabilities into the Commvault Cloud platform, providing Google Cloud customers with an automated, cloud-native rebuild solution to rapidly recover from cyber incidents.

Earlier this year, Commvault announced support for object retention lock for Google Cloud Storage, providing customers with immutable cloud storage on Google Cloud’s infrastructure. Designed to be an unalterable object storage layer, this is another way that Commvault is offering customers a strong defense against ransomware.

Forging a High-Powered Partnership with Pure Storage

Finally, the cyber resilience and data protection expert announced at its flagship event a joint cyber readiness solution with Pure Storage that can play a key role in helping organisations comply with evolving and stringent regulations, like the European Union’s (EU) Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) that is slated to take effect in January 2025. DORA will introduce a comprehensive framework focused on ensuring financial entities, including global banks, are not only prepared for unplanned events, but capable of recovering swiftly and effectively.

DORA requires organisations to report on cyber resiliency practices across a host of areas including, but not limited to risk management and operational resilience testing. Together, Commvault’s exceptional data protection and cyber resilience offerings and the innovative Pure Storage Platform help organisations address aspects of these regulations with an integrated solution that assists with compliance and keeps customers’ data secure in the face of cyberattacks, bad actors, and rising ransomware threats.

“Commvault and Pure Storage are delivering a globally scalable solution for digital operational resilience,” said Alan Atkinson, Chief Partner Officer at Commvault. “Whether organisations are trying to comply with DORA or the multitude of new regulatory compliance requirements, we combine exceptional detection, forensics, and reporting capabilities with immutable and rapidly recoverable snapshots in one comprehensive solution.”

Addressing Stringent Regulations

Under risk management, DORA identifies several subcategories that financial entities should focus on as part of their strategy for securing customer data. Among them are protection and prevention, detection, and response and recovery.

The joint solution addresses these categories in the following ways:

• Protection. This joint solution is built on zero-trust principles and includes advanced authentication, storage encryption, and compliance locks to safeguard critical backup data. In addition, the solution has multiple layers of software and hardware immutability, including Pure SafeMode™ Snapshots and S3 Object Locking on the Pure Storage Platform, for enhanced recoverability and additional protection against cyber threats.
• Detection. Commvault helps organisations easily detect and remediate risks, threats and unusual activity. With proactive risk scanning, AI-assisted anomaly detection, and cyber deception technology that uses decoy devices to hunt threats, Commvault delivers early warning so organizations can coordinate response and accelerate recovery of clean data.
• Response and Recovery. For the most critical systems (e.g. payments), one of the best ways to meet stringent recovery time objectives required by regulations is to use storage-based snapshots. Commvault integrates with Pure Storage to provide rapid recovery of mission critical systems from Pure Storage Platform snapshots that leverage Pure SafeMode.

Commvault also integrates with a wide array of leading cybersecurity and threat intelligence solutions to enable better threat recognition and faster, more coordinated response and recovery.

Enabling organisations to advance resilience is not only applicable to DORA, but also supports compliance under other cybersecurity and privacy regulations like the EU’s NIS2 Directive and e-mandates from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for recurring transactions.

“The financial sector is under constant threat of cyberattacks that have the ability to undermine economies and consumer confidence. At the same time, cyber regulations are putting stretched IT and security teams to the test,” said Patrick Smith, Field CTO, EMEA, at Pure Storage. “Through our partnership with Commvault, we are giving financial institutions critical tools that not only help comply with regulations like DORA but advance their cyber resilience to help ensure enterprise data remains secure, protected, and if necessary, recoverable.”

For more information about how Commvault and Pure Storage can help organisations ensure compliance, please visit here.