The IT Nerd

With Cybersecurity Awareness Month kicking off tomorrow, I have a comment from Chris Mierzwa, Sr. Director, Global Resilience Programs at Commvault.

For background, Chris Mierzwa is a seasoned technology executive with over 30 years of experience in the IT solutions space. As a former CTO and SVP at Sirus Computer Solutions (now CDW), he led strategic initiatives across infrastructure, cloud, and partner ecosystems, overseeing billion-dollar revenue targets and complex M&A Integrations.

“As we approach another Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it serves as a stark reminder that enterprises must get ‘back to basics’ and focus on creating stronger security foundations. Among the many different threat vectors, I implore business leaders to pay close attention to social engineering – the increasingly dangerous Achilles’ heel of every organization.  

Enterprises are underestimating threat actors’ ability to understand the more formidable adult psyche. With the help of AI, cybercriminals can now alter their voices, accents, and launch social engineering attacks in multiple languages with real-time translation, leaving employees with no cues to suspect malicious intent. On top of that, threat actors recognize that employees only receive minimal cybersecurity training, meaning they don’t have the knowledge or skillset to recognize the newest and most sophisticated threats.” 

Commvault, a leading provider of cyber resilience and data protection solutions for the hybrid cloud, announced its intent to acquire Satori Cyber Ltd (Satori), a data and AI security company.  

Enterprises are facing a perfect storm of AI adoption, data growth and sprawl, and regulatory pressures globally. The need to manage these challenges across hybrid and multi-cloud environments is paramount for security, IT, and business leaders, as well as boards.  

By acquiring Satori, Commvault will help enterprises further support compliance requirements, mitigate risks, and control access to sensitive data – who has access to it and how the data is being used – critical in the AI era. It also includes large language model (LLM) monitoring and prompt protection, automated discovery, classification, and access management for structured data. This builds on and complements a robust set of capabilities for discovery, classification, and policy management of unstructured data estates that Commvault provides today.  

Satori will bring a host of unique data and AI security capabilities to the Commvault Cloud platform, including:  

• Purpose built innovation for the modern data stack and AI era: Cloud-native, agentless, and integration-ready with platforms like Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks, and Microsoft Fabric – making policy enforcement, masking, and access governance simple to deploy at scale. 
• Data security for structured and AI training data: Discover, classify, and protect sensitive data across cloud-native databases, warehouses, and analytics platforms – before it is exposed or misused. 
• AI-aware protection and recovery: Track data flowing into LLMs and AI models, assess risk, and enable compliant recovery using Commvault’s trusted backup and cleanroom workflows. 

The acquisition is expected to close in August 2025. 

Commvault today announced a partnership with Kyndryl to help customers recover faster, advance cyber resilience, and navigate the evolving regulatory landscape.  

The collaboration with Commvault will augment Kyndryl’s portfolio of cyber resiliency services, which encompasses Incident Recovery Services, including Cyber Incident Recovery, Managed Backup Services, and Hybrid Platform Recovery. 

Under the established partnership, Commvault and Kyndryl will collaborate with Pure Storage to assist organizations in complying with evolving and rigorous regulations, including the European Union’s DORA, NIS2, PSD2, as well as NYDFS NYCRR 500 and Australia’s APRA CPS 230. The companies will showcase their services at the Pure//Accelerate Conference in Las Vegas from June 17 to 19. 

The services from Commvault and Pure Storage deliver a modular, four-layer architecture that streamlines the compliance process and accelerates recovery across hybrid cloud environments: 

• Cyber Resilient Vault: An isolated, immutable data vault built on zero-trust principles, protecting backup data from unauthorized access and corruption. 
• Clean Recovery Zone: A secure environment for forensic analysis, validation of clean backups, and staged recovery operations. 
• Production Rapid Restore: Fast, reliable restoration of large datasets using Pure Storage FlashBlade™, with immutability powered by S3 Object Lock and SafeMode™. 
• Immutable Snapshot Recovery: Application-consistent snapshot replication with Commvault IntelliSnap® and Pure Storage FlashArray™, enabling rapid restoration of Tier-1 workloads. 

The offerings provided by Commvault and Pure Storage facilitate automated and continuous testing for cyber recovery. This includes support for Commvault Cleanroom™ Recovery within both public cloud environments and on-premises isolated recovery environments managed by Kyndryl. Clients have the capability to validate their recovery processes and support compliance with DORA Chapter II (Risk Management), Chapter IV (Operational Resilience Testing), as well as other relevant regulations. 

Availability  

The services are typically accessible throughout North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. For further details on how Commvault, Kyndryl, and Pure Storage can support organizations’ compliance with regulations and enhance their cyber resilience, please visit the Kyndryl and Pure Storage partner pages.  

Channel partners can access deal registration, training, and co-branded collateral through Commvault’s Partner Advantage program, Kyndryl’s go-to-market teams, and Pure Storage’s Partner Portal. 

For more information about how Commvault, Kyndryl, and Pure Storage are empowering the channel to drive cyber resilience and support for compliance, view the Joint Solution Brief.  

Commvault, a leading provider of cyber resilience and data protection solutions for the hybrid cloud, today announced it is extending its Kubernetes protection to support virtual machines (VMs) running on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization. This new capability enhances cyber resilience for organizations moving to modern application environments. 

Containerized workload adoption is rapidly growing: Gartner predicts 90% of G2000 companies will use container management tools by 2027¹, and the Containers as a Service (CaaS) market is forecasted to hit nearly $USD 44B by 2034². This surge makes integrated data protection and recoverability critical. Enterprises must mitigate downtime from ransomware and other disruptions while managing complex data protection across hybrid environments. Using disparate tools for VMs and containers ​can ​create overhead, duplicate effort​s​, and heighten risk. These are just some of the reasons a unified cyber resilience strategy is vital for protection against evolving threats, reducing complexity, streamlining operations, and lowering total cost of ownership (TCO​)​. 

Commvault addresses this by enabling customers to automatically discover, protect, and recover VMs running on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization alongside their containerized workloads, all through the Commvault Cloud platform. These capabilities can be particularly valuable for DevOps, SRE, IT/backup admins, and technology leaders (CIOs, CISOs, CTOs) that are managing cloud-native estates.  

For customers, this means: 

• Robust Cyber Resilience: Commvault offers air-gapped and immutable backups with advanced recovery for VMs on Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, enabling improved business continuity in the face of ransomware and other threats. 
• Faster and ​More ​Flexible Recovery: Customers can restore VMs both in-place and out-of-place, including VM configurations, accelerating deployment and minimizing downtime. 
• Unified Protection for Hybrid Workloads: Customers can simplify operations by managing both traditional and cloud-native workloads through a single platform, reducing tool sprawl and operational silos. 
• Cost Savings and Operational Efficiency: Customers can eliminate the need for separate backup infrastructure or tools for VMs, lowering TCO and increasing administrative efficiency. 

Availability  

Commvault support for Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization will be available for early adopters in early summer and is targeted for general availability by early fall. Pricing is aligned with existing Commvault Kubernetes protection models.  

Today, during RSAC, cyber resilience leader Commvault has made two announcements, including: 

• New capabilities for their Cleanroom Recovery offering
  • Factory Reset – an industry first capability, will accelerate the infrastructure recovery process by enabling customers to rapidly restore their infrastructure from a pre-defined, validated, clean image. Eliminating the concern of restoring infrastructure that’s tainted by ransomware and quickly rehydrating restored systems with data, helping to speed up the overall recovery process. 
  • Commvault Cloud Threat Scan  – added threat scanning capabilities will empower security and IT teams to scan their recovered data in a cleanroom and ensure their data is clean while helping enterprises remain in a state of continuous business after bad actors strike.
  • Delivery via managed service providers – MSP providers focused on helping enterprises be resilient will now be able to offer Cleanroom Recovery to their customers. 
• Expanded partnership with CrowdStrike
  • Building on existing integrations between Commvault and CrowdStrike, this expanded partnership delivers a unified suite of services, including CrowdStrike’s elite incident response services and Commvault’s Guardian retainer-based services offerings. The companies will enable joint customers to improve readiness, respond faster, and achieve cleaner recoveries.  

On top of that, Commvault also secured GovRAMP Authorization – the company is the only cyber resilience vendor to hold GovRAMP Authorized, FedRAMP High Authorized, and FIPS 140-3 validated status for its SaaS data protection solutions. The press release can be found here.

Commvault, an enterprise data protection leader for today’s global businesses and the first data protection vendor to introduce cyber deception, announced new security capabilities across its entire portfolio. Signaling the next phase in its evolution, Commvault is helping businesses secure, defend, and recover their data to meet increasingly sophisticated cyber threats head on. As part of these capabilities, Commvault has expanded its security ecosystem to include product integrations with Microsoft and CyberArk. 

Commvault has redefined data protection to include early warning technologies that help to secure against threats before they happen, defend enterprise data if the environment is breached, and ensure recoverability so customers and their data remain resilient in the face of evolving cyber threats. The only data protection vendor with early warning, in-depth threat monitoring, and cyber deception for production and backup environments, Commvault can detect threats in as little as five minutes versus the industry average of 24 hours. Through early detection of zero-day and insider threats, Commvault technology helps protect data against breaches and cyber attacks. 

Available in Q2, Commvault’s advanced security features are managed and delivered through the simplicity of the new Commvault Cloud Command interface, providing complete visibility for better business decisions, improved security postures, and preserved data for cleaner, more efficient recoverability. These capabilities include:

• Commvault Cloud Command – A single platform and UI, offering universal management for all Commvault offerings in an integrated dashboard that provides full telemetry and observability into key Commvault software indicators. Delivers health-at-a-glance, risk levels, security and recovery indicators, and beyond for Commvault investments from a single source.
• Commvault Risk Analysis – Powered by machine learning (ML), Commvault Risk Analysis quarantines and protects sensitive data, giving organizations the ability to discover, analyze, and secure sensitive data to help prevent cyber exposure and potential data exfiltration.
• Commvault Threat Scan – Fosters the detection of corrupted or suspicious datasets. Businesses can use Threat Scan to locate and quarantine malware and threats from backup content, and help ensure clean recoveries while decreasing the likelihood of reinfection.
• Commvault Auto Recovery – Cyber analysis tool that tests recovery readiness at scale and provides a framework for forensic analysis to validate and sanitize points of recovery, aiding in the prevention of future incidents. Allows organizations to easily and securely recover workloads at scale from cyber-attacks with minimal data loss and downtime.
• ThreatWise Advisor – Delivers integrated logic into Commvault backup environments to intelligently recommend decoy placement, and further harden critical workloads.

In the event that enterprises need to recover from an attack or outage, Commvault’s proactive and reliable recoverability across the industry’s broadest workload coverage reduces downtime and accelerates response times for business continuity.

Protecting the most workloads requires strong technology and engineering partnerships. To that end, Commvault also announced collaborations with Microsoft and CyberArk to integrate Commvault’s technology with their respective security platforms. By expanding its security ecosystem, Commvault is helping organizations enhance their security posture through automated incident response, better collaboration, and deeper insights into the threat landscape.

Commvault and Microsoft Sentinel bi-directional integration provides an enhanced security posture and improved collaboration between backup environments and security systems. This new layer of interoperability for IT and SecOps teams delivers automated orchestration jointly across both systems for combined cyber event insights, actionable countermeasures, and optimized incident response.

Commvault’s latest security innovations will be available in Q2 through Commvault and its worldwide ecosystem of partners. To learn more, read today’s blog. For more information on Commvault’s integrations, visit the Supporting Technologies page.

Commvault, an enterprise data protection leader for the complex and mission critical hybrid environments of today’s global businesses, announced that KuppingerCole Analysts AG has positioned the company as an Overall Leader in its Leadership Compass on Cloud Backup for Ransomware Protection. Within this rating, Commvault has also been named a Product Leader, Innovation Leader, and Market Leader.

The KuppingerCole Leadership Compass provides an overview of the Cloud Backup for Ransomware Protection market, analyzing vendors based on innovativeness, market position, financial strength, and ecosystem, as well as their respective products and services across a range of capabilities, including security, functionality, deployment, interoperability, and usability.

Commvault’s enterprise-grade DPaaS excels in all of these categories and is championed in the report for delivering a wide range of cloud-native data protection solutions that cover a broad spectrum of workloads, including databases, endpoints, file & object, VM & Kubernetes, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Active Directory, and Salesforce. The report also spotlights the enhanced security and compliance protection from Metallic DPaaS via its Security IQ security tools and insights, ThreatWise cyber deception technology, and Government Cloud protection.

To learn more, download the full KuppingerCole Leadership Compass on Cloud Backup for Ransomware Protection on Commvault’s website.

Commvault, an enterprise data protection leader for the complex and mission critical hybrid environments of today’s global businesses, announced with Microsoft the results of an independent study from Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) showing real world cost savings driven by Commvault and Microsoft’s joint solutions for securing and protecting over one million terabytes – or One Exabyte – of customer data.

Through their long-standing collaboration, the companies deliver breadth of coverage, flexibility, cost efficiency, and reduced risk to customers. The ESG study, titled “Analyzing the Economic Benefits of Data Protection with Commvault on Microsoft Azure,” found that customers reported 30 per cent cost savings, 38 per cent reduction in data footprint, and thousands of hours of staff time recovered along with improved data security. 

Joint Commvault and Microsoft customers like Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT), have experienced the effects of shifting to a cloud-first strategy using Commvault’s Metallic SaaS technology built on the Azure cloud platform. Since implementation, NDOT has eliminated all of its physical backup infrastructure, removing management headaches and resulting in an ongoing savings of 25 per cent in infrastructure costs, while also strengthening its ransomware protection with insights that help spot risks and reduce threats. 

More than 100,000 organizations have chosen Commvault to protect their business critical data. To learn more about why and read the full ESG study, “Analyzing the Economic Benefits of Data Protection with Commvault on Microsoft Azure,” please visit: https://www.commvault.com/analyzing-the-economic-benefits-of-data-protection-with-commvault-on-microsoft-azure.

Commvault and Microsoft will be hosting an Executive Roundtable and Panel Discussion featuring McAfee and other industry experts in Calgary on April 20^th. For more details on this exclusive event, please contact microsoft@commvault.com.

Commvault, an enterprise data protection leader for the complex and mission critical hybrid environments of today’s global businesses today announced its prestigious 5-star rating for the Commvault Partner Advantage program in the 2023 Partner Program Guide from CRN, a brand of The Channel Company.

According to CRN, Commvault earned the 5-star rating for going “above and beyond” in its “commitment to nurturing strong, profitable, successful channel partnerships.” Knowing which partners you can trust is critical for the channel community, especially when assessing which IT manufacturers, service providers, and distributors to do business with. Partnering with vendors like Commvault brings with it world-class technology solutions with unmatched breadth and depth, strong financial incentives, sales and marketing assistance, training and certification, technical support, and more – all important elements that can set a vendor apart and play a key role in boosting partners’ long-term growth.

In the 2023 CRN Partner Program Guide, vendors were evaluated based on program requirements and offerings such as partner training and education, pre- and post-sales support, marketing programs and resources, technical support, and communication.

Commvault’s Partner Advantage program has received a 5-star rating in the CRN Partner Program Guide for the last 10 years. Key tenants of the program center around Commvault’s dedication to helping its partners simplify their offerings, solve high-value customer problems to stay competitive, and evolve their business for exponential growth. Through the Commvault Partner Advantage program, partners can leverage Commvault’s world-class technology, in-depth tools, and tactical support needed to level up every one of their customer engagements and achieve next-level success—on-prem, in the cloud, at the edge, and everywhere in between.

The 2023 Partner Program Guide will be featured in the April 2023 issue of CRN and online at www.CRN.com/PPG.