The year 2024 witnessed significant advancements in data protection software, driven by the escalating sophistication of cyber threats and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. Artificial intelligence (AI) emerged as a pivotal technology, empowering organizations to automate governance, ensure compliance, and proactively identify potential threats. Leading vendors like Cohesity, Commvault, Rubrik, and Veeam solidified their market presence through strategic acquisitions, partnerships, public offerings, and the introduction of innovative features to their platforms. These enhancements included immutable backups and AI-driven anomaly detection, providing organizations with faster and more reliable mechanisms for identifying disruptions and facilitating swift recovery. Simultaneously, observability tools gained prominence, bridging the gap between system monitoring and data protection to deliver more integrated and proactive solutions for managing complex IT environments.
The data protection landscape underwent a dramatic shift with Cohesity’s substantial $7 billion acquisition of a significant portion of Veritas. This merger aimed to create a comprehensive data management and protection powerhouse, combining Cohesity’s agility and innovation with Veritas’s extensive global presence and established customer base. The resulting entity, projected to generate $2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2025, will serve a vast clientele of over 13,000 customers, including numerous Fortune 100 and Global 500 companies. This strategic move underscores the industry’s focus on consolidation and the creation of integrated solutions to address the growing complexity of data management and security. Commvault also made notable advancements, introducing Cloud Rewind, a feature leveraging technology from its Appranix acquisition, to automate cloud application recovery after cyberattacks, including ransomware incidents. This automated recovery process aims to significantly reduce downtime and enable businesses to resume operations swiftly.
Rubrik’s successful IPO, raising $752 million, further fueled the development of its Zero Trust Data Security solutions for multi-cloud environments. Strengthening its partnerships with Microsoft and AWS, Rubrik introduced innovative tools such as Cloud Vault for air-gapped backups and Azure Blob Protection for compressed immutable backups. The company also integrated AI-driven technologies, including Ruby, an AI assistant for cyber threat response, Data Threat Engine for detecting suspicious activities, and SentryAI for analyzing customer telemetry data. These AI-powered functionalities, coupled with immutable backups and anomaly detection, bolstered Rubrik’s ability to protect against sophisticated threats like ransomware and accelerate recovery processes. Veeam Software also secured significant funding with a $2 billion secondary equity offering, valuing the company at $15 billion. This investment underscores the market’s confidence in Veeam’s growth trajectory and its strategic positioning in the data protection market.
Major cloud service providers, including Microsoft, AWS, and Google Cloud, also prioritized advancements in integrated data protection tools to address the evolving challenges of AI adoption and cybersecurity. Microsoft introduced the general availability of its Purview Data Governance solution, enhancing its capabilities with an embedded Copilot experience and improved integration with Microsoft Fabric. AWS focused on improving its Amazon Macie service for automated data discovery, while Google Cloud strengthened its security posture with Mandiant Custom Threat Hunt for targeted threat detection and upgrades to its Security Command Center. Smaller data protection vendors also contributed to the industry’s progress, with companies like Barracuda focusing on storage efficiency, Quest Software expanding its suite of tools, N2WS enabling cross-cloud volume restores, HYCU enhancing its Nutanix offerings and partnering with Anthropic for AI workload protection, Acronis bolstering its cybersecurity solutions, and Carbonite improving cloud backup capabilities.
The observability market experienced significant growth, driven by the increasing complexity of IT environments, the shift towards cloud and microservices architectures, and the need for more efficient IT operations. Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk for $28 billion marked a significant development, combining Splunk’s log management and analytics capabilities with Cisco’s network monitoring and security solutions. This integration aimed to provide a more comprehensive view of IT systems, enhancing collaboration between security and IT operations teams. Other prominent observability vendors, including Datadog, Dynatrace, New Relic, AppDynamics, LogicMonitor, SolarWinds, Sumo Logic, and Elastic, also enhanced their platforms, focusing on real-time system monitoring, distributed tracing, and log analysis. Open-source solutions like Prometheus and Grafana played a crucial role, while the rise of OpenTelemetry further influenced the future of observability.
IBM also advanced its observability offerings, leveraging AI-driven features for more efficient monitoring and problem-solving. LogicMonitor received substantial investment, further validating the importance of observability in managing complex IT environments. The year 2025 promises continued evolution in the data protection landscape, with a strong emphasis on the integration of observability systems with data protection platforms. This convergence, fueled by AI and predictive analytics, will shift the focus from reactive threat detection to proactive risk mitigation and automated compliance processes. Advancements in privacy-enhancing technologies, particularly fully homomorphic encryption, are anticipated, particularly in sectors like finance and healthcare. Regulatory changes around AI governance and data sovereignty will also shape the landscape, requiring organizations to adapt to stricter compliance requirements.
The integration of Cohesity and Veritas is expected to deliver new capabilities in real-time recovery and proactive threat detection, potentially reshaping the competitive landscape. Enhanced AI-driven data classification tools will help enterprises prioritize protection for sensitive information while maintaining compliance. Vendors like Microsoft and Amazon are also expected to advance their offerings, providing deeper insights into data usage and potential security gaps. AI-powered simulations and threat modeling will further empower enterprises to refine their defenses against emerging risks. The convergence of these capabilities with advanced observability tools will enable organizations to optimize operational continuity, reduce recovery times, and navigate increasingly complex digital environments. The combined advancements in data protection and observability signify a paradigm shift towards smarter, more agile strategies that meet the demands of today’s dynamic digital landscape. These advancements empower enterprises to enhance their resilience, adapt to evolving challenges, and maintain business continuity in an unpredictable environment.
