Day: April 29, 2020

Veeam Announces General Availability of NEW Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure

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New backup and recovery solution integrates with Azure functionality to help organizations move more applications and data to Azure; eliminates cloud data loss while maintaining control over costs and security

Veeam® Software, the leader in backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management™, today announced the general availability of NEW Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure, an enterprise-ready cloud backup and recovery solution. This new offering will enable customers and service providers to move more applications and data to Azure, and to cost-effectively, securely, and easily protect cloud applications and data in Azure. In addition, Veeam’s portable backup format enables complete Cloud Mobility – including backup, recovery, and migration – across a multi-cloud environment.

Public cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), such as Microsoft Azure, continues to rapidly grow in adoption for production IT workloads. Even with public cloud IaaS, while the uptime of the infrastructure is guaranteed by the service provider, the customer is still responsible for not only their data, but also protecting that data against threats such as ransomware, accidental deletion, data corruption or rogue users, just as it is with customers’ on-premises data. With NEW Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure, Veeam extends its broad platform support with a comprehensive, enterprise-ready solution for added backup and recovery controls of Azure apps and data hosted on Azure virtual machines.

“According to the Veeam Cloud Data Management Report, cloud data loss is something all organizations are experiencing,” said Danny Allan, CTO at Veeam. “Whether it is due to error, accidental deletion, security threats such as ransomware and malware, or retention gaps, customers are responsible for protecting their data regardless of location – on-premises or in the cloud. Our solutions eliminate the challenges and complexities IT professionals face by improving reliability, reducing costs, and shortening recovery windows. NEW Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure provides customers with greater cost controls and savings while also enabling them take control of their cloud data by protecting and managing Azure alongside their cloud, virtual, and physical apps and data.”

NEW Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure provides organizations with increased confidence in moving more applications and data to the cloud knowing that the same Veeam platform they use and trust for their on-premises environment now seamlessly extends to Azure. Benefits include:

• Tight integration with Azure to start protecting data in minutes with turnkey deployment through the Azure Marketplace, integrated snapshot automation for more frequent restore points, backup to Azure Blob storage, and fast full and file-level recoveries.

• Cloud mobility in a multi-cloud environment enabled by Veeam’s unique portable backup format delivering backup, recovery, and migration across cloud, virtual, and physical environments.

• Lower cloud TCO with an industry-first backup cost calculator to optimize policies to avoid excessive or unexpected charges, and long-term retention in cost-effective Azure Blob storage.

• Isolate backup data from production to increase security with cross-subscription and cross-region backup, as well as multifactor authentication as a layer of defense against cyberattacks.

Pricing and Availability

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure is available in both free and paid editions, both of which are easily deployed via the Azure Marketplace. Free edition enables backup for up to 10 Azure VMs, with no limitations on restores. Paid edition can be licensed using Veeam Universal License (VUL) and features integration with Veeam Backup & Replication™, for a flexible Cloud Data Management solution from a single platform.

Fortinet Makes All Online Cybersecurity Training Courses Available for Free to Address Skills Ga

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Online, Self-paced Training Courses Previously Open to Partners for Free Now Also Available for Anyone to Expand Technical Security Skills and Broad Cyber Awareness At No Cost

“In the wake of the global health crisis, organizations in the region had to make a rapid shift to accommodate their remote working models. As a result, businesses face several challenges but key among them is dealing with new security risks targeting remote workers,” said Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet. “IT teams are under pressure to secure not only the organization’s network, but also a remote workforce, and this requires a broad and varied skill set. To help our partners and customers in the Middle East region update and gain new skillsets in this time of crisis, we are making our entire online, self-paced catalogue of advanced training courses available for free so that any IT professional can expand timely knowledge and skills on-demand as needed to effectively protect their organizations.”

Increased Risk With Distributed Workforces

Globally, organizations have had to quickly adapt their network to support their workforce transitioning from their traditional on-premises work environment to remote telework. To maintain business continuity, IT teams are strained with ensuring everyone in their organization is securely set up to remotely access critical resources and applications on the corporate network. In parallel, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the unprecedented increase in remote access of sensitive information and data by searching for security gaps and shifting attack strategies to target teleworker environments.

 According to a recent study from ISC2, nearly two-thirds of companies lacked the skilled staff they needed to maintain effective security operations. With the rapidly expanding attack surface that a distributed workforce at scale has introduced, IT teams need broad security skillsets more than ever, to protect their organizations.

Free Training to Help Develop Timely Security Skills

Fortinet is leveraging curriculum from its NSE Institute’s training and certification program to offer 24 advanced security courses for free to help IT professionals expand their cybersecurity knowledge and address new risks.

By learning about Fortinet technologies, such as FortiGate firewalls, FortiNAC and FortiManager, training participants will acquire an array of skills to defend any network against threats. Recorded lab demos for these courses will be available for on-demand viewing and supplemented with regularly scheduled live sessions with Fortinet Certified Trainers. During these live sessions, trainers will be available to demo labs and conduct Q&A sessions. Anyone interested in getting started with Fortinet’s free training courses can visit here.  

 For anyone interested in training options beyond self-paced, Fortinet has a worldwide network of Authorized Training Centers (ATCs) providing Fortinet training in a variety of formats.

NSE Institute’s History of Addressing the Cybersecurity Skills Gap

Today’s introduction of additional free cybersecurity courses further builds on Fortinet’s existing efforts to address the cyber skills gap through training and education. With over 300,000 NSE certifications issued, Fortinet established the NSE Institute in 2015, comprised of the NSE training and certification program, the Fortinet Network Security Academy, and the Fortinet Veterans program. In addition, Fortinet was named “Professional Certification Program of the Year” by the 2019 CyberSecurity Breakthrough Awards.

As part of the program’s free training catalogue, Fortinet provides foundational cyber awareness courses for anyone through levels NSE 1 and NSE 2. In addition, the FortiGate Essentials training was recently added as an additional course for anyone interested in learning how to use firewall policies, user authentication, routing and SSL VPN.

Securing the Expanding Attack Surface Beyond Free Training

Fortinet is committed to customers and partners not just through free trainings but also through existing functionalities embedded in Fortinet FortiGate firewalls. For example, existing Fortinet customers already have remote worker solutions embedded in their FortiGate firewalls that can be used at no additional charge. Powered by custom security processors (SPUs), FortiGates are capable of scaling to a significantly higher capacity. Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution is included in every FortiGate appliance, providing customers reliable and cost-effective connectivity for their branch workers, improving their application performance. And Fortinet’s free FortiClient software can be quickly installed on both business and personal devices to create encrypted VPN connections to the enterprise network.