How To Unify Data Protection Across Your Hybrid Infrastructure

Here are three ways to make that happen:

1. Centralize Visibility With Unified Data Management Platforms

Every SMB can benefit from a unified data management platform. Even cloud-only businesses that primarily store data in some combination of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform — which are the most popular clouds used by SMBs, according to Flexera — can leverage a native data management platform.

Microsoft Purview, for instance, can manage and govern data across on-premises, multicloud and SaaS environments. If you already use Azure, that might be a good starting point. Other viable options for the centralization of data include Snowflake AI Data Cloud and Salesforce Data Cloud.

Third-party tools such as Commvault Cloud and Rubrik Security Cloud take this one step further. They provide a single control plane for managing backups, retention policies and threat detection across the entirety of hybrid environments. This reduces blind spots in your IT stack and streamlines data governance.

Crucially, these tools can help strengthen backup and recovery, especially for businesses with hybrid cloud footprints that retain sensitive data on-premises.

2. Implement Policy-Based Security and Automation

Centralized data visibility isn’t enough. That data must be classified and governed by clear, enforceable policies, and those policies then need to be enforced. 

This is complicated when data resides in different environments. To a significant extent, a next-generation firewall, sometimes referred to as a virtual firewall, can help.

“NGFWs support centralized management across all firewall deployments — on-premises, cloud and branch,” notes Palo Alto Networks. “This helps ensure consistent policy enforcement and visibility across environments.”

NGFWs leverage zero-trust architecture through the development and automatic enforcement of user-based access policies. Simply put, they can help automate the enforcement of controls.

In terms of who accesses and manages backups, policy-driven tools such as Veeam Data Platform  can achieve a similar outcome. Specifically, they enable authorized users to automate backup, replication and recovery rules across workloads, regardless of where they reside. This enables reliable protection and regulatory alignment across cloud, virtual and physical systems.

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3. Integrate Threat Detection Into Backup Workflows

Visibility and policy enforcement are great until something goes wrong. According to research conducted by Sophos, 94% of companies hit by ransomware in 2024 said that the attackers attempted to compromise their backups during the attacks.

As a general data protection principle, Veeam recommends adhering to the 3-2-1 rule.

• Keep three copies of your data — the original data and at least two copies.
• Use two different types of media for storage to enhance redundancy.
• Keep one of those copies offsite.

And as an added security measure, the company recommends making the offsite copy immutable, or air-gapped, to immunize it against ransomware and tampering.

Most major cloud providers offer some version of backup security. For instance, Google launched its backup vault in 2024.

“Backup vault secures backups against tampering and unauthorized deletion, and integrates with Security Command Center for real-time alerts on high-risk actions,” Google project managers note in a blog post. “Backup vault secures backups against tampering and unauthorized deletion and integrates with Security Command Center for real-time alerts on high-risk actions.”

RELATED: Overcome hybrid cloud’s biggest security challenges.

This, with some combination of NGFW, multifactor authentication and privileged access management can go a long way toward protecting cloud backups.

But for compliant industries that store high volumes of sensitive data, that might not be enough.

Solutions such as Dell PowerProtect Cyber Recovery embed anomaly detection and air-gapped recovery into the backup infrastructure, allowing IT leaders to detect ransomware early and restore clean data quickly and without compromise. Similarly, Veeam Data Platform provides anomaly detection, backup verification and clean recovery with zero data loss. And so completes the trifecta of unified data protection: visibility, policy enforcement and threat prevention. 

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