As federal healthcare and civilian agencies business leader at Veritas Technologies, Carolyn Hyde helps government function securely. It’s work that’s much needed.
“Federal C-level technology leaders have a very tough job today,” she said.
Budgetary uncertainty complicates planning. Cybersecurity challenges remain significant, and the constant threat of attacks necessitates resilience and quick recovery for the government. Meanwhile, many agencies face tight deadlines to complete their cloud migrations.
“It’s not easy for them to work with the speed that’s needed to move the data and applications to the new infrastructure, while maintaining the necessary security controls,” Hyde said.
As a leader in multi-cloud data management, Veritas Technologies helps agencies to meet these challenges by ensuring the protection, recoverability, availability and compliance of data.
“Veritas protects the world’s data,” Hyde said, and that’s not just ‘ones and zeros.’ Government data “is what ensures payment of our seniors’ Social Security checks and provision of healthcare for many Americans. It’s the backbone of our national defense. Protecting data really means protecting everything that is essential to the business of what federal agencies do.”
In support of those aims, “we deliver fantastic functionality for ensuring the data backups are always available, that they are protected from credential theft and scanned for malware,” Hyde said. With Veritas’ capabilities, “they can always recover clean data following any disaster, large or small.”
In support of cloud migration, Veritas delivers cloud-native protection, with multiple deployment choices. “That means you can protect both the latest databases that the various cloud providers roll out, and you can also move your decades old data and protect your legacy applications as you’re moving to the cloud,” Hyde said.
On the cost side, the company’s compression capability allows an agency that typically needs 10 terabytes of storage to store the same data in just one terabyte.
“As wonderful as the cloud may be, the meter is always running,” Hyde said. Storage costs money, and compression at a ratio of 10-to-1 or more offers “a substantial savings.”
In a competitive marketplace, Hyde said, the breadth of the Veritas offering helps the company to stand out.
“We cover everything from the latest cloud database from Google, to much older systems like AIX and Solaris: Systems and their workloads that a number of our competitors don’t even know how to spell,” she said.
In government, where agencies may still be running on systems the commercial world moved past years ago, “we’re still able to protect them,” she said.
In the current growth strategy, the cloud is a key driver, with cloud data expected to grow at double-digit rates for the foreseeable future. To capitalize on this opportunity, Veritas is investing heavily in research and development.
“We’re continually enhancing our products, adding new functionality,” Hyde said. “And we work very closely with the cloud providers, whether it’s AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, Oracle. We are doing things in tandem with our partners as well, both the cloud partners and a number of other technology partnerships within our ecosystem.”
Supported by those extensive relationships, Veritas can meet a wide range of government needs, she said.
“We don’t have exclusions or limitations,” Hyde said. “I don’t have to go in and say: Well, I hope that you’re using these three products or whatever, because that’s where we fit. That’s an outgrowth of our partnering strategy and our experience working with the largest organizations and agencies on the planet.”
When it comes to business challenges, Hyde said, Veritas’ success is in some sense the biggest stumbling block.
“We’ve been an industry leader in our space for almost 20 years now.,” she said. “Year after year, we’re named as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. We consistently produce really solid infrastructure with bulletproof capabilities.”
The down side?
“Sometimes, our customers don’t upgrade as frequently as they should,” Hyde said.
When they don’t upgrade, they miss out on the latest features. Then they might start eyeing other products. That means Hyde and her team have to be out there telling their story all the time.
“We try to continually educate our existing customers, so they know that the capability they need is in our latest version,” she said.
A 30-plus-year veteran of the GovCon space, Hyde said she takes special pride in helping government to meet its mission.
“I truly and honestly believe that the federal customer is the most important customer in the world,” she said. “They are responsible for everything from ensuring the safety of our citizens and visitors, to feeding and caring for people who require assistance, to protecting our borders. I really enjoy digging in and learning about each customer’s mission and challenges, then helping them to run smoothly, to safely control costs, and to drive efficiencies. I’m really proud of that.”