VeeamON | Tom Watson, Everpure

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Thomas Watson

Global Director - Cyber Alliances

Everpure

play_circle_outline Everpure's rebrand and 10-year Veeam partnership: delivering enterprise data management and cyber resilience via Pure1 Instant API

play_circle_outline VBR: Anomaly Tagging and a Single‑Pane Console for Cross‑Environment Visibility, Discovery, and Remediation

play_circle_outline Opportunity to expand into Veeam security AI, Kasten, and broader offerings

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Tom Watson, Everpure

Thomas Watson

Global Director - Cyber Alliances Everpure

In this interview from VeeamON 2026 in New York City, Tom Watson, global director of cyber resilience alliances at Everpure, joins theCUBE's Dave Vellante and Krista Case to discuss how Everpure is moving beyond storage to deliver enterprise data management and cyber resilience. Watson explains the company's rebrand from Pure Storage to Everpure and its push to reframe storage as the last line of defense in a threat landscape where adversary breakout times have dropped to as little as 27 seconds. He details the new Veeam Anomaly Awareness integration, which u... Read more

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How is Everpure (formerly Pure Storage) evolving beyond being a storage company into enterprise data management and cyber resilience, and how does its partnership with Veeam support those efforts? add

How does the Veeam–Pure1 integration work—specifically, where does Pure1’s anomaly detection end and Veeam’s investigation/remediation begin, where do their capabilities overlap, and how do you expect the partnership to evolve? add

What would one like to be able to say about this partnership one year from now that one cannot say today? add

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Tom Watson, Everpure

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Dave Vellante

>> Hi everybody. We're back at Convene at Hudson Yards in New York City watching theCUBE's coverage of VeeamON 2026. The afternoon keynotes are getting ready here. People are excited. My name is Dave Vellante here with Krista Case. We're also joined by Tom Watson, who's the director of Cyber Resilience Alliances at Everpure. Welcome.

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah, thrilled to be here. It's wonderful to be in New York, an incredible atmosphere here and a great location as well. A really, really neat venue.

Dave Vellante

>> Yeah. So you've been in this role a little over a year. You know a little bit about data protection and cyber resilience, but tell us a little bit about this role at Everpure.

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. So in my role, I've been there for about 13 months so far and what we've really been trying to do at Everpure is move beyond just a storage company. With the rebrand formerly Pure Storage, we've been focused on enterprise data management and with cyber resilience, a lot of the focus there has been moving beyond just a repository for the backups, but really driving outcomes for our customers around cyber resilience and cyber recovery in general. And this partnership with Veeam that's been really wonderful over 10 years that we've been partnering together has been leading the way, especially with our enterprise data cloud solutions.

Dave Vellante

>> Okay. Pure Storage had really great storage. Now you're moving beyond that. What'd you say? Enterprise data management?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah, enterprise data management. Exactly.

Dave Vellante

>> How is that resonating with customers? What does that mean to customers now that you're Everpure?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. So I think it's resonating really well. One of the reasons why we made this change is we really saw the demand from the customers to be more than just storage. Really think of storage these days as one of the last layers or last line of defense in general. So overall, what we've done is cyber resilience delivered as a service is a framework that Veeam and Everpure worked together to put out there last September actually at our Accelerate New York. So around nine, 10 months ago. Since then in the March timeframe, we debuted our Veeam anomaly awareness integration, really incredible integration. With that, we're using our Pure1 offering to identify anomalies. We flag that over to the Veeam instant API and then VBR is able to go in and actually tag potential anomalies in there. So all in all, we're really focused on delivering greater simplicity to our customers to help drive those end results they're looking for.

Dave Vellante

>> Tom, can you kind of put a finer point on that and take us through the Venn diagram, like where Veeam leaves off, where you pick up, where there's some overlap and maybe give us a little thought as to where you'd like to take the partnership.

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. So overall with this integration, again, it's being able to identify those anomalies and we're really proud of Everpure using our Pure1 and showcasing some of our capabilities. Again, more than just a storage company. But with that, we're able to flag that and send it over to Veeam. And then Veeam's able to go do that deeper discovery and use the capabilities that Veeam has beyond just a backup company, but all of those capabilities in terms of identifying what might be causing that anomaly. But overall for our customers, the real incredible value there is having everything inside now of the VBR console. So you're no longer having to say go to the Pure1 console, but the security admins are being able to see all that visibility, single planning of glass, driving the operational simplicity and then faster speed recovery.

Dave Vellante

>> So the other advantage for Everpure is you could do that across any irrespective of the physical location, cloud, on prem, you're out at wherever the devices are, or wherever the infrastructure are, that's a single sort of experience for the customer.

Thomas Watson

>> So really, yeah, we're focused for the Veeam side. It's going to be that single pane of glass. So you're not having to go into different consoles. It's going to be all right there in the VBR. So we think of it as kind of eliminating some of the barriers between the storage side of the house and the security side of the house and really giving that visibility in one singular place.

Dave Vellante

>> How are customers thinking about this move toward so called accelerated computing? I mean, you guys have always done, in your world, accelerated, right?

Thomas Watson

>> Sure. -

Dave Vellante

>> All flash, right?

Thomas Watson

>> Right. That's the key.

Dave Vellante

>> But now we're kind of redefining accelerated computing. So what's that conversation like and how does that affect the need for greater cyber resilience?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. So I mean, breakout times, I think the fastest one most recently from the CrowdStrike report was about 27 seconds. So when you think about that, just having fully integrated across all the different layers. So at Everpure, we're speaking more and more about this six layers of cyber resilience and overall the operational resilience that provides. So I think at the end of the day, it's having all of your different solutions be able to speak to each other, be integrated so that you can recover. Because unfortunately, I think we're moving towards a world where it's not an if, but when bad actors are going to get into the environment.

Krista Case

>> Yeah, certainly, Tom. And I know you were kind of talking about this operational simplicity, but there's also sort of the six layers you were just talking about that sort of you've integrated together. And so putting myself in the shoes of the customer, it sounds like that framework is what helps to make this actually an operational reality because it could be pretty complex without that.

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah, it can be complex. So being all inside the VBR console for that single pane of glass, I think there's so much value there. And then again, being able to take all the different signals from the different layers, the storage signals and being able to automate that over to the VBR eliminates a lot of the potentials human error and then that helps with the speed of the recovery as well.

Dave Vellante

>> What are the salient aspects of a good partnership? I mean, obviously you want to drive revenue, of course, but when you come into a role like this, what do you look for to determine, okay, we've got good alignment, it's going to meet the customer's need, there's product market fit. How do you determine that? What does a good partnership look like, Tom?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah, that's a great question. I think one of the biggest things that I've seen is being so important is that the shared organizational values is really, really impactful. And then both of our organizations have a really high focus in terms of moving more and more into the enterprise market. So I think our solution scientists have done a wonderful job of really uniting over the past 13 months to really focus on those customer outcomes and working back from the customer to deliver them something that's going to be really powerful, not just building offerings or solutions in a silo, but getting out there in the market, understanding what the demands are and then going out there and building solutions that are going to assist with those needs.

Dave Vellante

>> So how do you determine that? I mean, that sounds like something that AI can't just figure out. That's like a human touch, a sixth sense. How do you determine that cultural fit?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. So it's a lot of different areas. I think going out and aligning in the field is one of the most impactful things, having conversations with the customers. One of the great things about our partnership is the thousands and thousands of customers that we have together. So we have an incredible voice back to us in terms of what's valuable, what's needed, and then it's really just taking the opportunity to listen.

Krista Case

>> So Tom, I had a question. You mentioned sort of these customer outcomes, right? I know you talked about sort of the anomaly detection, right? So I'm sure things like faster time to detection or some of them, but can you speak to some of those customer outcomes that you're hearing frequently?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. So I can't speak to anything too specific, but I think overall it's being able to identify sooner, right? And instead of just searching through storage logs, et cetera, having the automated capabilities that our integrations are building on and then we're going to have ... I have not mentioned yet, but we are going to be adding on to our EDC roadmap that we're jointly building together. So we're going to have a V13.1 integration that'll be upcoming. So very excited for that overall. But yeah, I think it just goes to the automated pieces being the most valuable there to surface these potential errors in a more expedited fashion.

Dave Vellante

>> So you mentioned joint customers.

Thomas Watson

>> Yep.

Dave Vellante

>> Veeam, I think, has 550,000 customers.

Thomas Watson

>> Absolutely incredible.

Dave Vellante

>> My dashboard here, my friends at ETR, we have a partnership with enterprise technology research and there's actually considerable amount of overlap. I mean, Veeam obviously has more customers than does Everpure, but the overlap is significant. And so I'm just looking at it now. Wow, it's a good 15%, 20%, maybe even 30% of those customers, this is an account-based view. And you guys are saying, trying to get more into the enterprise. You guys have probably always been into the enterprise layer. It's kind of where you started, but you were driving a truck through the EMC Symmetrix back in the day. It was before your time there, but that's a decent overlap. So two questions. What do those customers want from you, those overlap customers? And what about the ones that aren't overlapped? How much of a priority is that and are you bringing each other into accounts? I know Veeam predominantly goes through the channel. How does that all work?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. So really what we've been doing with the EDC integrations and the roadmap there has been focused on our mutual customers and the value that we can immediately provide there. But in terms of prospects on either side or organizations that might be interested in the offerings, I think it's just continuing to showcase the value that our Better Together Story brings to market. And I think these are common themes across the board in terms of operational simplicity, consumption type model in terms of an acquisition of a product and then overall just security. These are things that all organizations are interested in and more and more, we're just seeing ransomware being a board level topic.

Dave Vellante

>> Yeah. And you've got some low hanging fruit there. I mean, you're talking tens of thousands of prospects for you guys.

Thomas Watson

>> And truly, and globally too, right?

Dave Vellante

>> Yeah. Right, for sure.

Thomas Watson

>> I think that's a really great part about this partnership is this isn't just a North America focused partnership. This is something across the globe where we are seeing really high demand overall for these joint offerings. And obviously Veeam is such a substantial business over in EMEA where we've seen a lot of uptick recently.

Dave Vellante

>> What would you like to be able to say about this partnership a year from now that you're not able to say today?

Thomas Watson

>> Boy, that's a good question for sure.

Krista Case

>> And maybe Tom, even thinking about the themes that we're talking about here at VeeamON 2026, I know the security AI acquisition by Veeam and sort of that combined roadmap and how they're kind of pushing more into the security side of the house and kind of building this AI data governance layer, maybe what does that mean for Everpure?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah, that's actually where I do think I would go is just how we can broaden the portfolio, right? So today we've really talked about cyber resilience, EDC obviously, but I think growing that beyond that in terms of the breadth of offering that Veeam has. So whether it be some of the Kasten products or obviously with the security AI acquisition around AI, et cetera, there's a lot that we can potentially add to the roadmap. So that might be what I'd call out is to have a really defined 36 month roadmap here around where the partnership is going and trying to get out in front of some of these really interesting times that we're dealing with currently.

Dave Vellante

>> Yeah. Let's give a little plug for Accelerate. You guys got your conference coming up soon, right?

Thomas Watson

>> Yeah. Accelerate June out in Las Vegas. Very excited about that. And then obviously we'll be at VeeamON in London and Australia as well. So we're very much looking forward to those two events coming up. Another awesome event like this one, I'm sure.

Dave Vellante

>> Nice. Yeah.

Krista Case

>> Absolutely.

Dave Vellante

>> Well, Tom, thanks so much for coming on theCUBE. We appreciate you sharing your perspectives and good luck with the partnership.

Thomas Watson

>> Thank you so much. Wonderful time.

Dave Vellante

>> Yeah, you bet.

Krista Case

>> Thank you.

Dave Vellante

>> All right. Thank you for watching. This is Dave Vellante for Krista Case. For theCUBE's coverage of VeeamON 2026, we'll be right back to the Big Apple right after this short break.