ZERTOCON VIRTUAL — Zerto on Tuesday took the wraps off two new platforms and previewed two others channel partners will be keen to understand.

The Boston-based cloud data management and protection vendor also named its top partners of 2020 at ZertoCon Virtual Tuesday. CDW ranked as Reseller Partner of the Year. Cumberland Group landed Growth Reseller Partner of the Year. Tierpoint took home Managed Service Provider of the Year honors. And IBM Cloud earned MSP Growth Partner of the Year.

Looking ahead, the company’s VARs and MSPs have additional tools and resources to take to market.

First, Zerto made good on its promise last year to launch Zerto for Kubernetes. The move comes as more organizations tell analysts they have deployed – or will deploy – container-based applications in a hybrid cloud strategy. To that point, Zerto for Kubernetes provides continuous data protection and disaster recovery for containerized applications. It operates across cloud and on-premises deployments.

Zerto says the product is the only one to integrate into the application deployment life cycle for containerized applications, enabling data protection as code. The company also says Zerto for Kubernetes guards against data loss and downtime even in cases of user errors, malicious activity or infrastructure failures. It does not require backup windows or external services.

The software works with Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service, Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service, Google Kubernetes Engine, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service and Red Hat OpenShift. Zerto plans to deliver more brand compatibility throughout the year.

Second, Zerto will release Zerto 9.0 in July, building on Zerto 8.0, which debuted last year. The upgraded data protection platform will feature backup for S3-compatible storage such as Cloudian. It also includes cloud tiering for AWS S3 Glacier and Azure Archive, and immutability settings for public cloud backups. Also look for enhanced backup management, instant VM restore from journal and file restore from long-term retention.

“Organizations that are building their future around cloud-native architectures need to have full confidence in the integrity of their infrastructure, resilience, and their ability to recover from issues such as cyberattacks and technology failures without delay,” said Deepak Verma, vice president of product at Zerto. “These solutions both deliver on those objectives.”

From SaaS Backup to Global Cloud Data Management

Next, Zerto on Tuesday took the covers off Zerto Backup for SaaS powered by Keepit. The platform, available now, takes three steps to set up, requires no capex, and delivers data encryption at rest and in transit. It allows organizations to protect cloud data across SaaS applications including Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Salesforce and Google Workspace.

Zerto’s David Osman

“The cloud has enabled people to do business anywhere and at any time, resulting in more critical data constantly being placed in the cloud,” said David Osman, director of technology alliances at Zerto. “The problem is that leaving SaaS backup as an afterthought can result in debilitating loss, especially since most SaaS vendors do not provide this critical service as a standard inclusion.”

In response, Zerto Backup for SaaS offers complete granular recovery and data availability outside the normal production data center. It also delivers an independent secure backup of data stored at a different location for added ransomware recovery protection.

Finally, Gil Levonai, chief marketing officer, announced a new platform called Zerto Global Manager. The software remains in concept but it will bring together management for Virtual Manager, Cloud Appliance, Zerto for Kubernetes and In-Cloud and Backup for SaaS.

“Our core competence is to simplify the world for you and make it scalable,” Levonai told attendees.

Zerto aims to release Zerto Global Manager later this year. For now, partners can join in the beta design work.

The cloud data protection market is soaring. Zerto’s momentum comes at an opportune time. For example, just yesterday, Druva, another cloud-based data protection vendor, hit a $2 billion valuation with a new funding round. As more hacks and threats encroach on cloud data, organizations are seeking better protections. That draws investor interest, which buoys a booming industry.