Ahead of RSAC 2025, we chat with Sterling Wilson from Object First about immutability, resilience, and simplifying security for backups. Find out why protecting your data is no longer just a backend issue—it’s a frontline defense.
When you feel the energy of RSAC week starting to build, you know it’s going to be a memorable one. Conversations, collaborations, learning, connecting—it’s what this community thrives on. And ahead of the big week, we had a chance to catch up with Sterling Wilson, Field CTO at Object First, to talk about their vision for data resilience and why backup security can’t be an afterthought anymore.
Sterling’s career path reads like a masterclass in data protection. After working deep in the trenches as a Microsoft and virtualization architect for both government and private sectors, he transitioned into the vendor space—eventually joining Veeam Software, where he became immersed in the world of backups and data resilience. That journey eventually brought him to Object First, and it’s clear that passion for simplifying security while strengthening infrastructure hasn’t faded.
One of the major shifts we talked about is how the world of cybersecurity is now fundamentally interconnected. Sterling emphasized what we’ve said many times ourselves: it’s no longer about isolated tools or technologies. It’s about how everything fits together. And at the center of it all? Data.
Object First is hitting RSAC with a mission: making backup security radically simple without compromising strength. Their “Ootbi”—short for Out Of The Box Immutability—makes protecting backup data straightforward, automatic, and resilient. No special configuration needed. No extra security knowledge required. Just plug it in and let the design do the work.
We loved hearing how Object First applies core Zero Trust principles—like assuming breach and strict segmentation—not to networks or apps, but directly to backup storage. It’s a philosophy Sterling calls “Zero Trust Data Resilience.” Especially in a world where admins are juggling multiple roles, budgets are tighter, and attacks are getting smarter (yes, AI is helping the bad actors too), reducing complexity while increasing protection is a game-changer.
Sterling also shared a hard truth that many organizations are realizing too late: a lot of backup storage solutions weren’t built for today’s threat landscape. They weren’t designed with security-first thinking. Object First aims to fix that by focusing on simplicity, immutability, and speed—not just in backup, but in recovery when it matters most.
If you’re heading to RSAC 2025, make sure you swing by Booth S260 to check out Object First in person. There’ll be demos, trivia, swag, and a few surprise announcements. Plus, Sterling will be speaking at the Insights Theater (South Expo Booth 2151) on April 30 at 10:30 AM. He’ll dive deeper into what Zero Trust Data Resilience really means—and why it’s time to rethink how we secure our most valuable digital assets.
And if you can’t make it to San Francisco? Don’t worry—we’ll be recording another conversation with Sterling on location during the conference, going even deeper into these critical topics. Be sure to follow our On Location coverage to stay connected with everything happening during RSAC 2025.
The future of security isn’t just about new firewalls, AI-driven analytics, or policy updates. It’s about protecting what matters most—our data—with approaches that are built for the challenges of today, not yesterday. And with companies like Object First pushing the boundaries, we think the conversation around data resilience is about to get a whole lot louder.
Guests:
Sterling Wilson | Field CTO | Data Resilience Strategist | ZTDR Advocate
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sterling-wilson-007
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Resources:
Learn more about Object First: https://itspm.ag/object-first-2gjl
Learn more and catch more stories from Object First: https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/object-first
Immutable Storage for Everyone.
Ransomware-proof and immutable out-of-the-box, Ootbi delivers secure, simple, and powerful backup storage: https://itspm.ag/objectzlju
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Keywords:
RSAC 2025, backup security, data resilience, immutable storage, zero trust, object first, ootbi, zero trust data resilience, cybersecurity conference, backup protection, Veeam, ransomware, disaster recovery, storage security, simple cybersecurity, RSAC, securing backups, infosec, infosecurity
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Learn more and catch more stories from RSA Conference 2025 coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/rsa-conference-usa-2025-rsac-san-francisco-usa-cybersecurity-event-infosec-conference-coverage
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[00:00:00]
Sean Martin: Marco,
Marco Ciappelli: Sean,
Sean Martin: I can feel the energy.
Marco Ciappelli: I know, I know. It's been building up and, uh, God, this year is energy for real. It's, it's out there.
Sean Martin: it's the, the energy of the community, uh, that is RSA conference, RSAC conference. They rebranded. I keep forgetting that, but, uh, there's. Quite a week ahead. Quite a week ahead. We're gonna see and, and [00:01:00] connect with a lot of friends, uh, many of whom we met, uh, over the past few weeks. And we'll get to see in person for the first time, uh, coming up here in San Francisco.
And I'm excited for the conversations and I think a lot of people are excited to see the keynotes, cruise, the, uh, the sessions and spend some time in the expo hall and hopefully they stop by the object first booth. We have Sterling Wilson on. Thanks for joining us, Sterling.
Sterling Wilson: Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me on, guys.
Sean Martin: Yeah, it's good. Good to, good to chat with you today and, uh, and you're gonna tell us all about what you're up to. and the object First team at RSA conference. And, uh,
Sterling Wilson: forward to it.
Sean Martin: before we get there, though, your role at Object First, a little, little history. 'cause I think, uh, your, your background, uh, is, is quite impressive as well.
So maybe a few things that you've done leading up to, to, uh, I'll object first.
Sterling Wilson: thanks. Thanks a lot guys. Uh, Sterling Wilson Field CTO here at Object First. [00:02:00] Um, and you know, I've been in really the data management, uh, data protection, data resiliency, uh, arena for quite some time. Um, previous to getting onto the vendor side of things, I was a Microsoft architect and virtualization architect, and both the federal government side as well as the, uh, the, the, the private sector. Um, and of course, like everybody else, we started having issues with backups back in the day. And, uh, transitioned to a, uh, a vendor called Veeam Software learned so much about it. Uh, that I actually joined, uh, as a senior engineer, uh, at Veeam Software. So was there for several years. Worked at a couple of other other vendors, uh, after that, during that time. But really learned how the backup solutions and the data protection, um, part of the infrastructure has really started to touch everything. And really that's what's brought us here to RSAC in security itself.
Marco Ciappelli: Yep. And as they say, it's one, uh, many voices, one community. And [00:03:00] that's what we're gonna hear, uh, there people from all over the world. And, uh, and I love what you said about, you know, I learned enough, so much about this product that you kind of became that product. So in this, it's really funny, but it's so true in this industry because there is a lot of collaboration and uh, and a lot of merging, a lot of company that ended up realizing that.
It's not about keeping secret, it is about sharing so that we can keep secure the businesses and and our community, so
Sean Martin: What are we always talking about, Marco, is that in order for something to really work these days, it is not just one thing, it's a. A combination of things that each have their own
Marco Ciappelli: they have to come together. Yep,
Sean Martin: when they come together, delivers the real value. And that that's true for it. That's true for business.
That that runs on, on systems and uses data.
Marco Ciappelli: yep. Yep.
Sean Martin: and of course, uh, data data's at the center of everything these days.
Marco Ciappelli: And starting, how, [00:04:00] how are you going to, um, interact and present? Uh, we know you have a booth there with object first and, uh, what do you expect to hear on the floor? And the question you will get.
Sterling Wilson: Yeah. well, well, we, we will definitely be there and, uh, I have not been to RSAC certainly as many times as you gentlemen. This is I think, number four for me. So
Marco Ciappelli: It is good. It's good. Far is good.
Sterling Wilson: here with, with, with all of this. Uh, and I can, I can attack this from, from two ways. Certainly, I will be there representing Object first. Uh, we'll be at, at booth S two 60. Uh, I will have a speaking session we can kind of talk about here in a little bit. So from Object first, it's really gonna be great for us to listen to the customers there, to listen to what they're dealing with and some of the obstacles they're having in making sure their data is safe. Um, I'm sure we'll be chatting a little bit more from the floor, uh, when we're there as well. I. But, you know, we were talking even before we began here. Security really touches everything. And [00:05:00] what we're learning is these new threat actors that want to steal our most prized possessions, our ip, our data, um, they go directly for, for the backups, for the targets of where we save our most prized possessions. So we are here to make sure that everybody knows that number one. data where you save your backups really needs to be thought about in the same way that we've thought about edge security solutions in the past, and that, number two, you don't have to be a security expert to, to enjoy the highest level of security around your backups.
Me personally, I love to see how all security has really. Con one place. I mean, I remember, uh, two years ago, I believe was was the last time I was there learning about everything that are taking. of those edge devices, all of the backup devices and everything, and really bringing them in, as you guys mentioned, to one particular sort of pane of glass, the way we look at the world and everything like that to [00:06:00] obscure solutions.
I saw a, um, a couple of years ago when I was there, um, a really cool design for a phone that allows you go into skiffs or areas that are government protected, federal protected. Where they have, uh, concerns about people listening in from your phone. This device was able to actually cover every single opening of the phone and actually produce white noise so that that couldn't happen.
So, I mean, you see absolutely everything at RSAC and I'm excited for that personally.
Sean Martin: So what are, what are some of the things that you're hearing from your own customers that you expect to hear echoed, uh, during the, during the conversations at the conference, I, I presume there's a lot, you mentioned resilience. It seems to be a topic that I hear quite a bit, but just the transformation of, I, I hate to use the two letter term, but AI seems to be touching everything as well.
So what, what are, what are some of the things you're hearing that organizations are. Trying to get their head wrapped [00:07:00] around with respect to their data and, and the resiliency of it.
Sterling Wilson: You know that, that's a really good question. I, I think that a lot of times there are admins, the people that are really. In charge of making sure that our data remains whole, remains intact. They're wearing a lot of hats today. Budgets are crazy. They have a whole bunch of tools that they've had to learn.
Many storage admins, many backup admins are now having to be at least security aware, security compliant. We, uh, we are the best backup storage for Veeam. We are a. appliance that is on premises that makes sure it is immutable by design. And we are actually created by the very same founders of Veeam Mir, Tim and Andre Bernoff.
And they had the vision to deliver the best storage for Veeam to take a lot of the onus off of those admins that we know are doing so much. Um, and we also wanted to build something for them. That was immutable out of the box that had all of the facets of [00:08:00] security that we know is needed today without them having to go and learn how to configure. Um, because if you misconfigure something, you actually increase your attack surface. So we applied some of the best facets of zero trust. We call it zero trust data resilience. And really what that is, what that is, is it applies the very, the very best facets of assuming a breach segmentation of, uh, of some of those roles and some other facets of that, that actually make sure that your data remains solvent, the same way that we've looked at Zero trust in those other architectures.
So what are we hearing from those customers? Well, what we've heard and what we're learning. Is what they're using today is not secure. They're either rolling it their own or they're using another solution that was built for something aside of security. Veeam itself is a very powerful solution. It is the best on the market for backup software. It's the framework that's so broad that you can use whatever you want [00:09:00] to place into it. And so over the years, what we've found is they're using. Um, storage that is not secure, that doesn't hold up to, to, to some of the attacks that, that we see today. Um, and what they are using is also too complicated. Um, they have difficulty managing that entire, uh, a storage architecture or infrastructure.
They're just a lot of moving parts in having to set up those things. And of course, when it comes time to restore, not if, but when, that we always say here, when it comes time to restore, we've seen that they had some difficulty in restoring some of that data. We believe in cloud very much. We think everyone should leverage cloud, but when it comes time to bring petabytes of data. Back to your infrastructure, back to your architecture. At a moment's notice where every moment counts. Uh, we believe we've come up with the best solution with UI i guys. Ui.
Sean Martin: Yes.
Sterling Wilson: ui.
Sean Martin: Please
Sterling Wilson: name of the of, of
Sean Martin: spell, spell it out for us.
Marco Ciappelli: It, it, it sounds from like, from Star [00:10:00] Wars, like I could see a little rabbit, right?
Sterling Wilson: have gotten that before and this is where I love to say, and I always pause, you know what, I'm on stage to say otbi because it perks every but Oopie.
What is
Marco Ciappelli: It is cool. I like it.
Sterling Wilson: exactly. It's O-O-T-B-I. And what does it stand for? Out of the box immutability. Literally the name says what we do.
Marco Ciappelli: Yep.
Sterling Wilson: we have come up with ui. is available in a plethora of sizes and different ways that we can consume uppi today, but literally our mantra is just to keep things secure.
It's zero access to root. You can't even elevate your privileges, even if you try to hack into the box. Even if you have admin privileges in the architecture, it's simple. 15 minutes box to backup, as we like to say. It uses all of the Veeam defaults, so you also don't increase your attack vector by turning off encryption, turning on encryption, and doing all of these things that we really shouldn't be doing with our data. And of course, last but not least, it [00:11:00] provides the power We need to make sure that you can recover on a dime with your data, having the same set of circumstances that you needed to have.
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, well, I, I'm thinking when you make something that is. Easy to use, easy to understand, easy to deploy. And then the business don't really need to know what, you know, what's backstage.
Sean Martin: get in the
Marco Ciappelli: That's, that's actually the goal of cybersecurity. If, if you have an ideal goal, I think that's it. You know, to be non-painful, easy and maybe you can't even see that it's there.
Uh, but maybe an ideal will never reach. But it's good to think about that, and I think it's good for the business as well. Right.
Sterling Wilson: agree with that more. That was
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. So tell me, um, uh, people come stop by the booth. What can they get there? Do you get demos? I'm sure there is a hat with a little cute hood bee. I dunno. Something like that.
Sterling Wilson: with fun? I
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, let's do that.
Sterling Wilson: about having [00:12:00] fun.
Sean Martin: I can feel the fun on this call for sure. So that's seems to be a given stop by the booth for some fun. No
Marco Ciappelli: Yeah.
Sterling Wilson: I'm looking forward to having some fun with you all too. So we're gonna be out and about. Um, once again, we will be at Booth S two 60. Uh, we'll be having trivia and giveaways and so you can learn a little bit about more about opi. Uh, you can grab some great swag, learn about the collateral. Uh, we have some collateral that will help you learn about some of those facets we just talked about, about, and some pretty cool announcements. That we just came out with as well. there will be times for trivia. I think we, we also mentioned that, uh, Tuesday, April 29th, 12:00 PM 3:00 PM Wednesday, April 30th, 12:00 PM 3:00 PM And we have an announcement coming on April 30th at 4:00 PM as well. So that will be some great things happening at the booth, and we encourage everybody to come by, talk to our subject matter experts and have some fun.
Sean Martin: And [00:13:00] speaking of SMEs, um, clearly field, CTO, you see a lot of stuff, of different organizations. Different configurations, different tech stacks, different team structures. Um, a lot of the ops oriented stuff I'm, I presume you can speak to, do you also have folks who can speak to, uh, the, the business end of things and, and how, how it connects to the business and who else, who else do you hope to see there?
Business ops, who else?
Sterling Wilson: Absolutely. You know, from from the business perspective, people are looking for new ways to be able to consume UI for new ways to be able to apply UI into their architecture. These, these are some crazy times in where the admins are doing so much more, they're getting these attacks. We talked a little bit about AI and how AI has, has, has helped unfortunately, the rise in tax attacks and how we can combat that. UPI is a lot of that answer. I. But procuring oopie, understanding how oopie is gonna fit into your business, understanding what that does to certain SLAs, [00:14:00] um, are things that are the checks that we expect to have next week. And so we, we definitely want people to come by and explore that business side of it as well to just make sure that it fits into their business the way they need it to.
So whether you wanna purchase a box outright and save all of your data there. Maybe you're looking for a new way to tear off your data. Maybe you as a business analyst need to make sure that you have a way for a disaster recovery plan to fit in your budget. Uh, whether it's a managed service, whether you wanna, you know, use part of the cloud and part of your on-premises.
We're here to help educate and help you make that decision.
Sean Martin: So I want to, I wanna say one thing and ask one thing first is. I'm super excited to get into UPI with you. we're gonna record a session on location, uh, the RSAC studios. Um, so I'm really looking forward to that. And, um, I think you have a presentation as well, is that correct?
Sterling Wilson: Absolutely.
Sean Martin: Tell us about that.
Sterling Wilson: by and check out the presentation. We [00:15:00] have a presentation. It's in the Insights Theater. It's Booth 2 1 5 1 in the South Expo Booth 2 1 5 1 in the South Expo, and that is April 30th at 10:30 AM in the exhibitor in Insights Theater and basically. We know your backups aren't secure, and we're here to help with that. So basically we're, we're going to explore that zero trust data resilience that we were talking about a little bit ago. We're, we're gonna really dive into what that means, what true immutability really means, and we'll discuss the newest announcements around that consumption based service. So for everyone who can, who can attend, whether you're a techie like myself, whether you're a business analyst or somebody looking to see how it can help your overall business.
There will be something for everyone and you'll leave with some great tips that you can start today to make sure that your data has the right set of circumstances around it.
Marco Ciappelli: Love it. Love it. And you know what else I love? I love the fact that this is a pre-event conversation, and [00:16:00] we're gonna meet on location. We're gonna sit down, we're gonna actually go a little bit deeper into pretty much everything you, you spoke about today, so people can learn even, even more. And, uh, I want to thank you, um, object first for sponsoring our coverage and, uh, joining us on our, on this adventure.
Which, uh, I hope is gonna be great for everybody learning, staying secure, connecting with the community, and we certainly can't wait to meet you guys there and, uh, to be there. So Sean,
Sean Martin: I love this story. I love your energy Sterling, and, uh, I'm, I'm thrilled to, to have you be part of this and excited for everybody else to hear the story and the object first story and, and get resilient with the data.
Sterling Wilson: Couldn't
Marco Ciappelli: uh.
Sean Martin: Amen.
Sterling Wilson: Gentlemen. Next week is going to be an absolute blast and I'm looking forward to sharing as much as I am looking forward to learning. It's gonna be awesome.
Marco Ciappelli: Yep. It's about learning to and, and for all those people that follow us from. [00:17:00] You know, around the world. And you know, we say there is a lot of people at RSAC conference, but it's not that everybody's gonna go there. It's not around, it's not that close to other people. And uh, maybe it's not, uh, affordable, but there is still a way to know about everything going on there by following us on location with Shauna Martin and Marco Chappel, which is me.
Um, but sometimes I don't, I don't call myself that often, so, you know, I tend, I tend to forget. I, I ref,
Sean Martin: Alright.
Marco Ciappelli: I need the short name, like, or something like that. Uh.
Sterling Wilson: That's it.
Sean Martin: Sterling will.
Sterling Wilson: gonna, we're gonna give him a nickname next week. Sean.
Sean Martin: Alright, perfect.
Marco Ciappelli: give me, gimme one, gimme one, gimme one, and that. So everybody just stay tuned, stay with us. As you can tell, it's gonna be fun and it is gonna be a learning experience. So subscribe. Stay tuned and visit us on itsp magazine.com/s.
Sean Martin: Yes, look in the show notes for the booth info and the presentation from Sterling [00:18:00] and uh, we'll see everybody on location in San Francisco.
Sterling Wilson: See you there.