Veeam is heading into 2018 with a strong wind at its back, coming off the strongest year its decade-long history.
The backup, data protection and business continuity company notched $827 million total bookings for 2017, growing 36 percent year-over-year. Additionally, Veeam reported 62 percent growth in enterprise deals -- while deals over $1 million leaped a remarkable 500 percent. Plus, the company closed more deals exceeding $500,000 in 2017 than it did in the previous six years combined.
Those figures suggest Veeam's global alliance partnerships -- with companies like Cisco Systems, HP Enterprise, Microsoft, NetApp, VMware and even Dell EMC -- are gaining traction. Channel Chief Kevin Rooney made those alliances a top priority in 2017, while also vowing to strengthen relationships with CSPs, MSPs and VARs across the midmarket and SMB sectors. A distributor push, led by VP Dangvy (Ngo) Keller, also is under way.
Veeam: Multi-Cloud Data Protection
Still, Veeam's momentum requires more than business relationships. The company is attributing the growth in part to its commitment to innovation, helping organizations deal with data sprawl and the need to ensure that data remains available across complex multi-cloud environments.
“We continued success in the mid-market while also expanding into the enterprise, which is a key focus for us moving forward,” said Veeam Co-CEO and President Peter McKay. “Veeam continues to grow at double-digit rates as legacy competitors experience a decline. Our leadership and momentum in delivering available for any app, any data, across any cloud has us well poised to be a billion-dollar software company by the end of 2018.”
To put things in context, 2017 was McKay’s first full fiscal year with the company. In that time the company has made what he refers to as “bold moves” in terms of market focus, partnerships, and organizational structure. “To succeed, you need to be willing to take risks and make key decisions. During 2017, and specifically Q4, we executed on our plans to scale to a $1B company by the end of 2018, and the results speak for themselves,” he asserts.
New Faces, New Rivals, New Tools
Veeam currently boasts 282,000 customers, while new names continue to come on board. An average of 4,000 new customers join each month, the company says, with names like The Ameritas Life Insurance Company, BankservAfrica, Follett, SkullCandy, and more joining the fold.
Generally speaking, Veeam competes against entrenched rivals like CommVault, Veritas and Dell EMC (despite also partnering with Dell EMC, by the way). The company may also face increased competition from fast-growing disrupters like Datto (MSP-centric SMB solutions, Druva (enterprise-class infrastructure data protection) and StorageCraft (VAR- and MSP-centric offerings).
Still, Veeam isn't resting on its laurels. The company recently upgraded Veeam Availability Suite 9.5 to bolster virtual, physical, and cloud data management. Demand for the cloud-oriented capabilities appears strong. Veeam reported 50 percent year-over-year growth in its cloud business with a 57 percent year-over-year boost in cloud bookings for the fourth quarter and more than 1.1. million virtual machines now protected by Veeam and its partners.
The big twist? Instead of building its own cloud service, Veeam defers to third-party CSPs to deploy and manage the software on their own.
On the talent front, Veeam added more than 1,000 employees over the year and invested more toward developing its workforce, coming in the form of 150 online training courses and 24 percent growth in its enablement team. “We understand our Veeam team comes first. We need to develop our people so they’re growing at the same pace as our company. In 2018, we are making our people a major priority,” McKay wrote in a prepared statement. Those programs will be used to retrain current employees and recruit new faces, McKay added.
Strategic Partners: A Closer Look
And what about those strategic partnerships we mentioned earlier? The highights include:
- Relationships with the like of HPE, Cisco, and NetApp, drove more than $100 million in bookings revenue, the company’s data shows.
- Veeam and HPE together pursued and closed more than 1,000 joint opportunities.
- Cisco added Veeam to its global price list so partners can quote and configure Veeam and Cisco data center solutions from a single ordering system.
- With NetApp, Veeam grew from product integration to a full reseller agreement.
- Veeam also expanded its partnerships with enterprise solutions providers, including integrations with IBM Cloud, VMware, Pure Storage, Nutanix, and N2WS.
Dell EMC is noticeably absent from that list of milestones, likely because the companies both partner and compete fiercely.
So what's next? Keep an eye on VeeamOn 2018, a major partner and customer conference set for May in Chicago. Rooney, no doubt, wants to further accelerate enterprise relationships ahead of that event. Plus, there are signs that Veeam is starting to formulate a strategy to engage global systems integrators like Accenture, DXC Technologies and more...
Additional insights from Joe Panettieri.
