In episodes 87 of the IoT For All Podcast, we sit down with Rick Vanover, Senior Director of Product Strategy at Veeam as he shares some insight into data management and protection in IoT.
Rick Vanover is the Director of Technical Product Marketing & Evangelism at Veeam Software. His experience includes system administration and IT management; with virtualization being the central theme of his career.
To start the episode, Rick gave us a bit of background on Veeam. Veeam is a leader in backup solutions that deliver cloud data management; it provides a single platform for modernizing backups, accelerating hybrid cloud, and securing data.
Rick also shared that, for most companies, the management and protection of data tends to be a huge oversight. Besides compliance or performance measurements, data backup can be vital to operations. “If you’ve ever deployed an IoT solution, you know that if something goes wrong, it could put the whole ROI in jeopardy.” Rick said, “and the data can be the saving grace there.” He referred specifically to log files, which can give a clue into what has happened with a solution or a piece of machinery and give key insights into what went wrong.
For many companies, Rick said you have to start by looking at the data and determining where it is, and what needs to be kept. “Think of an IoT solution you have in your organization, where is the data lake, where is the data you care about – how do we protect it, how do we manage it, do you even have visibility into it?”
Changing gears, Rick spoke to some of his typical customer engagements. Most customers, he said, come to Veeam with a solution that’s already been built and a clear purpose in why the data needs to be kept – often compliance issues or to troubleshoot. “It becomes a laser-focused discussion on where’s the data that matters and how do we protect it,” Rick said. But the outcomes are best when they get to be involved in the earlier processes – thinking about data before the solution has been built or deployed.
Ultimately, though, Rick said that Veeam is there when companies need them, regardless of the stage of the project. “The reality is, we have the opportunity to come in and be the hero and provide the tools that scrape up even the minimum amount of data to keep it protected.”
One of the biggest challenges associated with backing up data for IoT is how custom the solutions are. “Veeam software can deploy very consistently to very different environments, but the opposite is true in the IoT space,” Rick said, “there’s very few consistent deployments – it’s a very fragmented industry with a lot of home-grown solutions.” That means sometimes implementing some extra steps to both find and backup data.
To close out the podcast, Rick shared his advice for companies building IoT solutions – what to think about when they’re considering what data to back up and how, as well as some of the considerations they should take into account when deciding between cloud and edge computing, in relation to their data storage and management.
Interested in connecting with Rick? Reach out to him on Linkedin!
About Veeam: Veeam is a leader in backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management. Veeam provides a single platform for modernizing backup, accelerating hybrid cloud, and securing data.
Key Questions and Topics from this Episode:
(01:37) Intro to Rick
(03:00) Intro to Veeam
(03:57) How often do you think companies aren’t thinking about the ability or need to back up and secure their data?
(05:43) What does a typical customer engagement look like? At what stage do companies typically come to you?
(08:46) How do you approach the unique needs of IoT solutions?
(11:02) How do your customers view the importance of collecting data and engaging with data on the edge?
(13:55) What’re your thoughts on 5G and the role it’s going to play in IoT?
(17:25) What are the benefits of a cloud-based solution or approach in terms of long-term security?
(21:58) Why is now the time to implement Cloud into your IT infrastructure or your solution?
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