Some technological advances, like landing on the moon, inspire us. Others, like video games, entertain us. At Druva, we’re excited about innovation that helps our customers. We believe that Gen AI is the next giant leap in our journey to building autonomous data protection.
Nobody wants to spend more time and money on protecting their data, but with cyber threats and data sprawl, most people did not have a choice. Until now. Druva wants to do the job of protecting data for you, and AI will help us — today, tomorrow, and in the future.
In the first part of this series, we discussed the basics and how Generative AI can be applied to backup. In this second part, we will explore how Druva is using Gen AI to solve your data protection challenges.
How Generative AI Accelerates Autonomous Protection
Data protection will become autonomous. Administrators should not have to configure, monitor, and troubleshoot backup infrastructure, either on-premises or in the cloud. Companies should select RPO, RTO, and retention SLAs, and let the solution do the driving.
Druva is on a mission to make data protection autonomous. Today, Druva customers do not need to manage software patches, hardware upgrades, capacity rebalancing, security monitoring, air-gapped networks, storage tiering, and dozens of other painful tasks.
Since we’ve already made such great progress on autonomous protection, why are we so excited about Gen AI? Since customers rarely need to do anything with Druva:
They are less likely to know how to find the information they need for troubleshooting, cost optimization, or responding to a cyber incident.
They are less likely to notice and adopt new functionality.
Gen AI can close the “last mile gap” and can be a data protection expert copilot that guides the customer through troubleshooting and adopting new services.
Therefore, the more autonomous Druva gets, the more important Gen AI will be — to ensure that our customers get the maximum value out of our product.
Generative AI at Druva — Meet Dru
By now, you’ve probably already heard about Dru, our copilot for backup. Dru is already solving the “last mile gap” between our autonomous system and our users.
But what makes Dru so architecturally different from the chatbots and DIY “products” that every other company is releasing?
Dru is a core part of our architecture, and we protect you from the dangers of Gen AI — cost, security, and hallucinations.
No cost to you — Since Dru runs in the Druva cloud, we pay for the usage fees, just as we pay for all cloud fees, including egress.
Native Druva security model — Since Dru is part of the core Druva architecture, it follows the same design principles to ensure that your data and your account is always secure.
Verified results — Like all Druva services, Dru is tested and validated, so that you can be confident in the data and recommendations Dru provides.
Why were we able to integrate Dru so cleanly and quickly into the Druva architecture?
Microservices — Druva’s architecture makes it easy to integrate new functionality because it is not a monolith.
Centralized training data — Dru’s service helps answer customers’ questions about optimizing Druva operations, not their data. As a SaaS service, Druva has central visibility into the operational challenges faced by over 5000 customers, which gives us a comprehensive corpus of data on which to train our model.
AWS partnership — AWS has made it easy to securely develop, enhance, and modify LLMs with Amazon Bedrock.
Bi-weekly releases — Druva releases new functionality every two weeks. In the world of Gen AI, the only way to keep up is to move as quickly as the underlying technology.
Where Does Dru Go Next?
If you haven’t seen Dru in action, you should check it out — start with these demos of how it can remedy backup errors and help you navigate the Druva platform with ease — Gen AI is going to send autonomous protection into hyperdrive.
We see the operational challenges faced by our customers, so we will develop more services that “do the job” of protecting their data. Services under investigation include: recommending policies for unprotected and underprotected resources, creating a customized UI experience for each admin, and simplifying report generation for auditors.
Gen AI will also help us deliver a more rapid response to cyberattacks by tying together the security ecosystem. One of the biggest challenges in any incident response is having to use a dozen or more products to gather and analyze information. Gen AI can connect API-driven products like Druva to eliminate silos and streamline incident response.
Ultimately, Gen AI will enable Druva to connect data protection to the business. Customers want to balance cost and risk, not think in terms of backup sets and RPO/RTO. Dru will help customers prioritize their applications and data, identify their most critical risks, and create the most cost-effective solution to meet their business risk requirements.
Conclusion
While many are touting the future of Gen AI, at Druva, the future is now. Dru is a real Gen AI solution that is already delivering value to our customers.
Dru will tell you that real Gen AI can be distinguished from hype with these 3 questions:
Is it shipping as part of the product?
Can the vendor explain what AI is doing at each step?
Is it a solution, or a DIY kit?
Whether you are trying to land on Mars or create the next great video game, let Druva autonomously protect your data for you. Dru will be happy to help.