The new solution lets developers access backup data on a secure self-service model to facilitate much faster building of applications, while providing channel partners with additional points of contact and new subscription-based revenues.

Cohesity has announced the launch of Cohesity Agile Dev and Test, a new capability of the Cohesity DataPlatform solution designed to facilitate the faster building of applications. It does this by providing developers with a self-service provisioning model to obtain data to build and test applications. Like the Cohesity CyberScan application, that uses the platform’s backup data to perform vulnerability scanning on backups, Cohesity Agile Dev and Test represents another use of the platform’s backup data to solve other problems.

“This is a further extension of our single platform story, and is another application in the same environment,” said Raj Dutt, Director of Product Marketing at Cohesity. “It continues the theme of making backup data useful for multiple use cases, by using it here in Dev and Test environments.”

Cohesity Agile Dev and Test brings two capabilities from the Cohesity platform to DevOps environments.

“One is a self-service capability which is well-suited to developers,” Dutt said. “The model until now has been a request-fulfill model based on manual requests, which reflects a  legacy approach to provisioning, and which can take weeks to fulfill. Now the developer can refresh a copy and get it automatically.”

This provisioning model leverages zero-cost cloning, which creates a reference to the original data, eliminating the need to create an identical, full-size copy of it.

“Architecturally, [founder and CEO] Mohit [Aron] always supported zero-cost clone Span FS, which doesn’t make a full copy of the data,” Dutt said. “This allows the backup data to be easily utilized without having any impact on production environments.” Using one platform for both data protection and Dev and Test lets organizations significantly reduce the number of copies that are created to facilitate modern application development, cutting storage costs and making it easier to stay in compliance with regulations around data.

The second capability is the security aspect.

“The solution provides integrated security with data masking and vulnerability assessment, leveraging the capabilities of the containerized CyberScan application that runs on the platform,” Dutt said. “Data masking is part of the core Dev and Test solution, which allows personal information to be masked. The vulnerability assessment is used to determine if someone has used a compromised snapshot for DevTest, and pushed it into a previously clean environment. Before we recover, or make a clone for DevTest, we determine if the snapshot is clean enough to recover from. So it provides self-service, without any compromise on security.”

The Agile Dev and Test capabilities will be made available in stages. Cohesity’s self-service capability is now in beta, and will be generally available to all customers in the fourth quarter of this calendar year as part of the Pegasus 6.4.1 software release. The data masking capabilities are slated to be available in the quarters following that.

Once the capabilities are released, Agile Dev and Test will be part of the core data platform capability, but it will not be a free add-on.

“To use it, there will be a subscription license that needs to be activated,” Dutt said.

Dutt said that Cohesity’s channel partners will be able to leverage this new solution to expand their TAM.

“Previously, channel partners will have been talking to infrastructure teams,” he said. “Now they can engage developer and test teams as well. Given that this is a subscription-based solution, expanding the market to these teams will expand the recurring revenue.”