Veeam announces acquisition of Kasten for $150 million

Veeam Software has announced it has acquired Kasten, a specialist in Kubernetes Backup and Disaster Recovery, in a cash and stock transaction valued at $150 million.

According to 451 Research, part of S-P Global Market Intelligence, nearly three-quarters of organisations are currently using or planning to use Kubernetes within the next two years. Veeam says it believes this shift creates a massive opportunity for the future of data protection and the acquisition reinforces its commitment to support customers' business transformation to future-ready architectures.

With this new acquisition, Veeam will integrate Kasten into its Cloud Data Management platform for modern data protection and radically simplify data management for enterprises.

As applications using microservice-based architectures have quickly gained traction in the enterprise, this shift has established a new segment of application development methodology known as DevOps. Containers are a critical component of this DevOps-led infrastructure and application modernisation, and Kubernetes has emerged as the dominant container orchestration platform – creating a significant opportunity for a single data protection platform that includes virtual, physical, cloud and Kubernetes environments.

"Veeam recognises the strategic importance of this environment, the increasing importance of providing modern data management that is deeply integrated into Kubernetes, and the growth of DevOps to improve quality, increase scalability, and accelerate application delivery while reducing daily management," the company says.

"With the Kasten K10 Data Management Platform, Veeam will now be able to offer enterprise operations teams an easy-to-use, scalable, and secure system for Kubernetes Backup and application mobility with unparalleled operational simplicity."

Danny Allan, chief technology officer and senior vice president of product strategy at Veeam, says, "Veeam was built on offering the best data protection for virtual and modern data infrastructures, and we have continued to expand our offerings to include industry-leading protection for physical and cloud environments.

 "With the acquisition of our partner Kasten, we are taking a very important next step to accommodate our customers' shift to container adoption in order to protect Kubernetes-native workloads on-premises and across multi-cloud environments," he says.

"This significant milestone strengthens Veeam's commitment to continue to deliver the industry's leading Cloud Data Management platform that will support data protection for container-based applications built in Kubernetes environments.

While the Kasten K10 platform will continue to be available independently, it will also be integrated into Veeam Backup - Replication to offer a comprehensive data management solution, Veeam says.

"With Kasten's protection of container workloads and Veeam support for virtual machines, physical servers, SaaS applications and cloud workloads, this best of breed technology will provide all organisations a single platform for modern data protection."

Kasten will operate as a separate Kubernetes Business Unit (BU) within Veeam. Kasten's founders, Niraj Tolia and Vaibhav Kamra, will lead the business unit – Tolia as its President and General Manager, and Kamra as Chief Technology Officer, Kubernetes BU. All teams including sales, marketing, R-D, and customer service will stay intact to continue growing the business with increased investment in people and resources.

Niraj Tolia, chief executive officer at Kasten, says, "The enterprise landscape is shifting as applications rapidly transition from monoliths to containers and microservices.

"With Kubernetes at the core of this infrastructural shift, Kasten's innovation in Kubernetes-native data management combined with Veeam's expertise in Backup, both on-premises and in multi-cloud environments, will significantly advance the state of modern data management," he says.

"Veeam's success has been a beacon of inspiration for the Kasten team and we are very excited to join forces with a company where there is so much philosophical alignment.