Veeam Acquires Object First In Move To Expand Data Resiliency

Object First, co-founded by the same duo who co-founded Veeam, is the developer of a line of appliances known as Ootbi, or Out Of The Box Immutability, which provide immutable storage to data protected in Veeam environments.

Veeam, a top provider of data resilience and data protection technology, confirmed that it has acquired one of its top technology partners, Object First.

Object First, which developed purpose-built data protection appliances specifically for Veeam environments, exited stealth in mid-2022. The company was co-founded by Ratmir Timashev and Andrei Baronov, who also co-founded Veeam and who continued to support Veeam after it was acquired in early 2020 by Insight Partners.

Object First is headed by CEO David Bennet, a longtime storage technology veteran who previously served as president and CEO of Axcient.

Object First developed a series of appliances the company said ensured that data was protected in Veeam environments by making it immutable. Immutable data refers to data which, once created, cannot be modified or deleted to ensure data integrity.

The company’s technology, which uses the S3 object storage protocol, is known as Ootbi, or “Out Of The Box Immutability.” Ootbi was designed specifically to work with data stored using Veeam.

The Ootbi line includes 2U appliances with individual node sizes of 20 TBs to 432 TBs. They can be used to build clusters of up to four nodes to provide up to 1.7 petabytes of usable immutable storage. Multiple clusters can be scaled to reach over 7 petabytes.

Object First also recently introduced a “honeypot” feature to help provide early detection of cybersecurity risks.

Veeam, in an emailed response to CRN attributed to Dave Russell, the company’s senior vice president and head of strategy, confirmed the successful acquisition of Object First by Veeam.

“Many customers want the simplicity of a single supplier for an out-of-the-box, immutable backup target appliance that combines hardware and software. Object First enables Veeam to offer a pre-integrated, easy-to-deploy solution that complements our existing partner ecosystem.

“Veeam Data Cloud Vault is the fastest-growing product in Veeam's history, because it removes complexity for customers who need a simple, secure, single-supplier experience. With Object First, we extend that same value on-premises while continuing to support an open, hardware ecosystem, allowing customers to choose simplicity, best-of-breed solutions, or a mix of both based on their needs and timelines.

“Our strategy remains unchanged: we are software-first and partner-first, empowering customers to deploy Veeam solutions wherever and however they choose,” Russell said in the email.

News of the acquisition was first reported by StorageReview.

Veeam declined to provide further information regarding the acquisition. Timashev and Bennet both declined to comment on the acquisition.

Veeam’s acquisition of Object First comes just three months after Veeam acquired Securiti in a $1.72 billion deal aimed at providing a unified platform across the entire data estate that takes aim directly at the 90 percent failure rate of AI projects.