Cloud-native container workloads are now deployed on a massive scale, and the adoption of virtual machines (VMs) on Kubernetes is accelerating, driven not only by traditional apps but also by new workloads like AI. As organizations innovate, the need for robust, scalable data protection has never been greater.
Veeam Kasten is the only Leader and Outperformer in the Kubernetes Data Protection market for the fifth year in a row, as tracked by GigaOm Radar. Our solution is trusted by banks, retailers, federal agencies, and public sector organizations, among many others, to protect both containers and KubeVirt VMs. These deployments reflect Veeam Kasten’s strong foundations in security, scale, and data freedom, all built in a Kubernetes-native manner and reinforced by deep technical integrations with partners like Red Hat, Microsoft, AWS, and SUSE.
With Veeam Kasten v8.5, unified data resilience takes center stage, bringing advanced protection for containers, KubeVirt VMs, and AI workloads, while elevating enterprise scale and automation to new heights. Grab your favorite beverage and let’s dive in to explore what’s new in this release, including capabilties that enable organizations to innovate with confidence, knowing their data is protected wherever it lives.
Modern Virtualization
As organizations accelerate cloud-native adoption and move away from legacy virtualization, the challenge isn’t just migrating workloads; it’s protecting them in a way that’s truly Kubernetes-native. Veeam Kasten v8.5 is designed for this new reality, supporting both containers and KubeVirt VMs with the automation, flexibility, and granularity modern teams expect.
Why KubeVirt VMs are Different and Why It Matters:
In Kubernetes, namespaces often define application boundaries. However, with KubeVirt, each VM is a resource within a namespace, and organizations use a mix of patterns: One VM per namespace, all VMs in a single namespace, or VMs grouped by team or function. This flexibility is powerful, but it complicates backup and recovery. Manual policy assignment is error-prone and doesn’t scale.
VM-Centric Protection Policies
Veeam Kasten now lets you select entire namespaces or individual VMs for protection. It automatically identifies and protects all dependencies needed to restore each VM, with no manual labeling or filtering required. This means you can define backup policies for individual VMs, regardless of how your organization aligns VMs to namespaces. Separate actions and restore points are created for each VM, so a failure to export one VM doesn’t impact the rest.
VM-Centric Restores
Restore points are now discrete for each VM, protecting only the resources needed for that VM. Restoring a single VM is as simple as selecting its restore point. Need to restore all VMs in a namespace, or across namespaces? The enhanced VM Dashboard also supports mass restore operations, making recovery fast and precise.
Additional Enhancements
- Optionally retain original network MAC addresses during restore for seamless network continuity.
- Restore individual VM disks for targeted recovery.
- Protect hotplugged VM disks to ensure data integrity, consistency, and operational safety when dynamically attaching or detaching volumes to running VMs.
While Veeam Kasten is already the most advanced and trusted solution for your journey to Modern Virtualization, our commitment to innovation continues. Our deep technical integrations and longstanding partnerships with leading ecosystem partners like Red Hat are only getting stronger
Enterprise Scale and Automation
As Kubernetes adoption surges, so do the demands for scale, automation, and security. Veeam Kasten v8.5 is engineered to meet these needs, delivering measurable outcomes: Faster innovation, lower risk, and greater compliance. Let’s look at some of the new capabilities:
File-Level Recovery (FLR) for Containers and VMs
Why restore terabytes when you only need a single database table or document? Veeam Kasten’s FLR lets you securely connect to a specific restore point to browse and selectively recover individual files, whether from filesystem volumes in containers or block volumes in KubeVirt VMs. Supported filesystems include ext4, xfs, FAT, and NTFS. This capability slashes recovery times and minimizes disruption, giving teams the agility to restore exactly what’s needed.
Restore Point Validation
Exporting backups to immutable repositories is ideal, but not always possible. Veeam Kasten’s restore point validation scans repositories to ensure all objects are present and can optionally validate complete volume data against original checksums. This guarantees that your restored data matches the backup, supporting compliance and operational peace of mind.
Secure, Seamless Operations
Veeam Kasten has long set the standard for Kubernetes-native security, with features like immutable backups, FIPS, RBAC, and deep integrations with cloud key management and SIEM solutions. With v8.5, we’re raising the bar even higher by delivering enhanced identity management, automated credential rotation, and expanded encryption options to keep your data safe and compliant across any environment.
- Federated Identity for Azure Blob: Integrate with Microsoft Entra ID for short-lived, automatically managed credentials, eliminating manual secret rotation and strengthening compliance.
- Azure Key Vault Integration: Manage Veeam Kasten encryption keys securely in your cloud of choice, which adds control and protection for sensitive workloads.
- Passkey User Interface: Administrators can now use a simple interface to manage multiple encryption passkeys, ensuring centralized control without extra operational overhead.
- Prometheus Remote Write: Stream Veeam Kasten metrics from multiple Kubernetes clusters to a single external Grafana for observability and alerting. Use Helm or Operator configurations for centralized endpoints and automatic or custom cluster labels to ensure clean, scalable multi-cluster dashboards that are backed by security best practices.
AI Workload Protection
From day one, Veeam Kasten has empowered organizations to protect their most critical workloads, whether they be databases, stateful apps, or modern pipelines. Now, as AI and machine learning workloads increasingly run on Kubernetes, v8.5 introduces new blueprints to safeguard vector databases and AI data infrastructure so you can innovate with confidence, knowing your next-gen data is protected by design.
- Blueprints for AI Data: As vector databases become mission-critical, Veeam Kasten v8.5 introduces protection blueprints that System Integrators (SIs) can leverage for scalable, automated safeguarding of next-gen data infrastructure.
Freedom of Choice
Veeam Kasten has always championed flexibility, supporting a wide range of storage backends, Kubernetes distributions, and deployment models. Past releases brought seamless integration with object stores, NFS, and Veeam repositories. With v8.5, we expand this freedom even further so you can protect your data wherever it lives, without compromise.
- Export to SMB:
Back up and restore to Microsoft-compatible SMB storage, in addition to object stores, NFS, and Veeam repositories to maximize compatibility and reduce costs. - Flexible vSphere CSI Integration: Back up Kubernetes persistent volumes using the vSphere CSI driver, without direct vCenter access.
- Azure Files Storage Support: Crash-consistent backups for workloads on Azure Files SMB storage, protecting both legacy and modern apps.
The Unified Platform for Resilient IT
Veeam Kasten v8.5 isn’t just a technical upgrade, it’s a strategic leap for enterprises navigating modern IT transformation. With advanced VM controls, enterprise-grade automation, AI data protection, and unmatched flexibility, Veeam Kasten enables a unified platform for safeguarding all workloads.
Whether you’re migrating from VMware, modernizing virtualization, securing AI pipelines, or updating your Kubernetes backup strategy, Veeam Kasten meets you where you are and takes you where you need to go.
General availability for Veeam Kasten v8.5 is scheduled for January.
Learn About Veeam Kasten v8.5 in detail with Accelerating Modern Virtualization and Cloud-Native Adoption: What’s New With Veeam Kasten? webinar
