Abstract
Cyber-risks continue to increase, with cybercriminals now targeting data protection infrastructures, too. As a result, we are seeing a rapidly growing market for data protection solutions that would be easy to use, cost efficient, and—importantly—equipped with cyber-recovery capabilities. Object First offers it is forward-looking IT partners a compelling business opportunity that is simple, affordable, powerful in addressing organizations’ challenges, and supported by a 100% channel-focused strategy.
The Impact of Ransomware on Data Protection
The scope of cyber-attacks is expanding. These attacks still target production data, but in addition, ransomware attacks are also targeting backup copies of data. As research by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group shows that a combined 87% of survey respondents are either somewhat or very concerned that their backup copies will be targeted by a ransomware attack.
Cyber-recovery Presents Further Risks and Challenges
Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) research also shows that 40% of organizations believe good backup infrastructure security plays a vital, preventative role against ransomware attacks and that it plays an important role in mitigating other related impacts, too. Backup security capability is particularly important, considering that:
- Paying a ransom does not guarantee that an organization will get all its data back (see Figure 1).
- Only 14% of surveyed organizations reported being able to restore 100% of their data after an attack.
- Many organizations experience additional extortion attempts after the initial attack.
Those are all good reasons for organizations to take extra measures to protect their backup copies, but there is typically room for improvement when it comes to protecting all of an organization’s secondary data.
Figure 1.
Paying a Ransom Doesn’t Guarantee Recovery of Data
Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, a division of TechTarget, Inc.
Object First Can Help
Object First is an IT solutions provider that helps its customers implement a stronger defense against today’s ransomware attacks targeting both production and secondary data, providing a highly regarded immutable backup solution designed explicitly for use in Veeam environments. Founded in 2022, the company is led by data protection industry veterans, globally recognized entrepreneurs, and other experts who possess particularly impressive IT pedigrees. They include:
- Ratmir Timashev: a renowned technologist, Object First co-founder, and the former CEO of Veeam.
- Andrei Baronov: Object First co-founder, and co-founder and former CTO of Veeam.
- David Bennett: a tech-industry veteran, seasoned IT channel executive, and CEO of Object First.
What Is the Object First Solution?
Object First’s Ootbi (short for out-of-the-box immutable) storage is an S3-compatible, object-based backup appliance designed for use with Veeam software (see Figure 2). It was created to assist midsize enterprises that are dealing with skills shortages and constrained IT resources—conditions that make them especially vulnerable.
Leveraging Object First Ootbi, Veeam users gain defensive capabilities via effortless immutability integration. A simple, intuitive user interface makes running management tasks quick and easy. And although the appliance is designed with performance capabilities to meet the workload requirements of midsized organizations, it can scale to up to half a petabyte of capacity.
Figure 2.
Solution Overview
Source: Object First
Who Is a Good Candidate for Object First?
Again, ransomware is top-of-mind today, and many businesses are looking for better ways to solve their backup-safety-related concerns. Object First is purpose-built to support the large, established market comprising Veeam’s 400,000 existing customers. Ready to address today’s ransomware-mitigation needs, Object First calls its appliance “ransomware-proof storage” for Veeam that is immutable out-of-the-box.
Typical Object First users fit several profiles but have many needs in common (see Figure 3).
Figure 3.
Object First Customer Profiles
Source: Object First
Why Partner with Object First? Let’s Count the Ways
Reason One: Object First Is a Great Fit
Object storage is a great fit for existing IT skills, competencies, and partner sales motions. Specifically, for partners that are already selling Veeam software, minimal additional skills/competencies are necessary to begin selling Object First, as well.
A partner engaged in selling Veeam solutions can target the same accounts with another simple, powerful, and affordable solution. The Object First message is easy for a partner to explain and easy for the customer to comprehend. No prior storage experience is necessary to begin selling, and Ootbi has been structured to make it easy to buy, easy to sell, and easy to deploy. (It can be racked, stacked, and powered in 15 minutes, according to Object First.)
Reason Two: Object First Can Strengthen Customer Relationships
Object First presents a way to reinforce customer loyalty by offering a simple, powerful, and affordable solution to address ransomware. This can set a partner apart from its competitors in the mind of a customer. Accelerating time to value for these customers can also make it easier to re-engage them for upselling and cross-selling—and in doing so, cultivate and protect a long-term relationship of trust.
Reason Three: Object First Offers Superior Support
Object First understands what its partners need. It has invested upfront in partner sales and technical enablement/training, pre- and post-sales support, and marketing to ensure its partners have all the necessary resources to run a successful backup storage practice. All of this is further backed by a live, 24x7x365 customer support organization.
Reason Four: The Object First ROI Is Excellent from Day One
Object First designed its go-to-market strategy, programs, and operations to support a high-velocity business and ensure success for its channel partners.
Components include:
- Marketing content, campaigns, and market development fund (MDF) availability.
- A comprehensive partner portal.
- Deal registrations and progressive discounts.
The company’s go-to-market model is 100% channel, with a high-margin partner program that rewards partner investment and ensures that when Object First wins, the partners win, too.
Onboarding is quick, and ramping up is easy. As mentioned, for partners selling Veeam today, practically no storage experience is necessary. Object First’s enablement, training, education, and field engagement mean minimal training is required to get started.
Even investment in market development and lead generation need only be minimal because partners don’t have to create new leads to start building this new aspect of the business — instead, they can mine their existing installed base of Veeam customers. This approach results in a shorter sales cycle that provides near-instant value to the customer and shorter time-to-revenue for the partner.
Conclusion
Targeted cyber-attacks and overall cyber-risks are escalating. This is placing a heavy burden upon data protection professionals, particularly within midsize companies. To be proactive in avoiding the impact of ransomware attacks, even while experiencing resource constraints, midsize organizations must make smarter purchases. They must avoid the unexpected cost overruns that can result from deploying disjointed, non-integrated solutions.
Modern data protection solutions need to be able to do a lot. They must have solid cyber-recovery and hybrid cloud protection capabilities. They must be quick to deploy and easy to manage. And they must be cost-efficient. Enterprise Strategy Group believes that Object First is well positioned with its Ootbi S3-compatable storage appliance to help Veeam users tackle these challenges head on.
From the time of its founding, Object First had an ambitious vision for on-prem, ransomware-proof immutable storage that is simple, powerful, and affordable. The company looks to succeed and grow with a partner-first strategy to reach every Veeam customer, especially those with a VMware environment. They are expending every effort to make Object First easy to buy, easy to sell, and easy to deploy, resulting in strong partner top- and bottom-line positive impacts.
Partner organizations looking to help their customers implement a stronger defense against ransomware attacks with a backup solution designed explicitly for Veeam should take a very close look at Object First.
Author: Christophe Bertrand, Practice Director, Monya Keane, Senior Research Analyst