Data protector HYCU is using Anthropic’s Claude generative AI model to produce connector code for a customer’s SaaS app data to be protected by HYCU’s Protégé service.
Customer data in SaaS applications is not protected by the app provider; it’s the customer’s responsibility. There are tens of thousands of such apps and no backup provider can write connector code to backup customer data in all of them. HYCU is hoping customers take up its R-Cloud SDK so the app providers themselves could add a HYCU connector to their apps, and more than 60 such connectors have been built.
HYCU founder and CEO Simon Taylor said in a statement: “This development with Anthropic’s frontier generative AI model Claude is more than an integration; it’s a leap forward in the future of data protection.”
The Claude model has been trained with HYCU information and uses a SaaS app’s API to build a connector between it and HYCU such that HYCU can backup and restore customer data. This can cut development time from three weeks or so to a matter of hours.
Taylor told an IT Press Tour briefing that, with Claude: “Customers can button-hit to get R-Cloud to automatically generate an application to protect a SaaS app. … We trained the model. … This bot writes a complete and extensible app and provides testing for it.”
HYCU says the training ensured that Claude “fully understand the nuances of compliance, encryption, and recovery protocols, custom-tailored for HYCU’s platform.”
The launch of HYCU Claude means that a customer could generate code for a SaaS app protection which could duplicate what other customers have done. HYCU is considering setting up a marketplace for the distribution of such customer-sourced, Claude-built apps. It had a target of having 100 SaaS app connectors built by the end of 2023 which did not come to pass, and anticipates Claude-built connectors could send the connector count sky-rocketing. It will stop publicly counting after 100 connectors are available.
HYCU Claude is a significant development from HYCU’s earlier introduction of its R-Scout, an AI -powered assistant for customers and partners to learn about the details of HYCU’s offerings, and how best to use them.
The company has also added the capability to protect data in PineCone and Redis Cloud databases which are both used as vector databases in AI work.
Taylor said: “By harnessing AI, we’re not only accelerating our development processes but also reinforcing our commitment to security and operational efficiency. We’re excited to take R-Cloud to the next level and pioneer this space and set new standards for the industry.”
Comment
This is a novel and significant idea which could be adopted by other industry players. There are potential licensing and pricing aspects of such customer-generated but supplier-built extensions to a software product or service. It is a step on from co-pilot-based assistants created by Commvault, Druva, Rubrik and others and gives them a development direction.
