Veeam unveiled the latest version of its data protection platform, highlighted by backup security and AI developments.
Veeam Data Platform v13, released early for new deployments on Nov. 19, with a later release planned for current customers who want to upgrade. The launch comes on the heels of the vendor's $1.75 billion acquisition of data security vendor Securiti AI in October.
Key updates include improvements to Veeam Intelligence -- an AI assistant integrated throughout the vendor's data protection and management suites -- and a new version of Coveware by Veeam's Recon Scanner threat detection agent.
Recon Scanner 3.0 is designed to catch indications of compromises within data backups. It then consolidates and sorts the alerts by severity to help IT teams quickly determine next steps for escalation and incident response.
With cybersecurity being a primary focus for many enterprises, the new Recon Scanner capabilities help address their concerns, according to Johnny Yu, an analyst at IDC.
"It directly addresses one of the most common cyber recovery challenges I come across, which is how to facilitate cohesion between IT operations and security operations," he said.
Russ Fellows, VP of Signal65 and an analyst at Futurum Group, similarly noted that while AI may dominate the news, it's not the top initiative for many enterprises.
"It's data protection and security," he said.
While the latest version of Recon Scanner targets a basic enterprise need, the improvements to Veeam Intelligence aim to make the AI assistant more efficient and add a new capability. In addition, they were designed with security measures in place to ensure their appropriate use, according to Veeam CEO Anand Eswaran, who spoke during VeeamON 2025, a user conference hosted by the vendor.
Integrating AI capabilities is important, but doing it in a very safe and secure way and also bringing customers along is perhaps more important.
Russ FellowsVP of Signal65 and analyst at Futurum Group
"Identity and data access controls are crucial for ensuring the safety of AI," he said.
There are now three options of Veeam Intelligence: disabled, Basic and Advanced.
The Basic version, which uses official Veeam documentation and publicly available sources to answer questions, has been updated to use agent-based retrieval rather than using a static vector database. The Advanced mode, meanwhile, is a new addition powered by the VeeamONE monitoring and analytics tool that provides users with details about their backup infrastructures, along with real-time monitoring data.
Like Eswaran, Fellows suggested that while AI capabilities are valuable, they need to be integrated with a focus on security.
"Integrating AI capabilities is important," he said, "but doing it in a very safe and secure way and also bringing customers along is perhaps more important."
Agent-based continuous data protection (CDP) for any Windows machine.
Extended hypervisor coverage to manage virtual machines, including support for Scale Computing HyperCore.
A new browser-based UI that reduces infrastructure requirements for non-Windows users.
An active-passive cluster configuration in the Veeam Software Appliance (VSA), enabling high availability and reducing the risk of downtime.
While the Veeam Intelligence and Recon Scanner updates are perhaps the most valuable new features for the vendor's users, the VSA could be a way for Veeam to differentiate itself from competitors such as Rubrik and Cohesity, according to Fellows.
"For those people who were picking some of [Veeam's] competitors because they wanted an appliance approach, they will now have that option with Veeam," he said.
Erin Sullivan is a senior site editor for Informa TechTarget's data technologies group.
