Yesterday, Axcient released the results of an October 2014 survey of 453 IT Professionals on the current view of IT resiliency in today’s SMB sector. The survey, conducted by independent research firm, Dimensional Research, is based on responses from US and Canadian IT Pros, and shows that, although backup is critical, current solutions are not covering SMBs as well as they could.
To be more specific, 90% of those polled said that they use more than one backup/recovery tool, with the largest percentage of this segment (37%) using three tools. This kind of BDR coverage came with its own stress, as 91% of respondents said that using multiple tools can cause more issues, such as the need to train team members, increased costs and multi-vendor relationship management. Also, 61% of those polled said that their multiple tools actually end up having duplicate functionality.
What are these companies actually backing up? Well, the study showed that overall, 29% of SMBs are backing up data only, and 71% are backing up both data and applications. Broken down, smaller SMBs (50-250 employees) are backing up more data only (32%), while their “M” space peers are more likely to backup both data and applications. Also, M-level SMBs tend to back up more than just the mission-critical items, but they are not backing up everything, in the event of a major IT failure.
When a major IT failure occurs, most respondents said that the greatest detriment was to employee productivity (84%). Business operational efficiency and company reputation came in second and third at 72% and 57%, respectively. IT Pros also take the brunt of the frustration from an IT failure, with 75% of those polled saying that they would see a poor performance review, while 51% said that they would lose their job. Only 8% of respondents said that they could recover from a failure within one hour, and 23% said that it would take more than 24 hours for them to recover on their current system. In addition, 79% of respondents said that their organization had experienced a major IT failure within the past two years. The study showed that this is becoming a more common occurrence, particularly for smaller companies.
So what did respondents feel was a good solution? The study showed that those polled are starting to look more at cloud BDR to cover gaps in traditional on-prem solutions. Although the number of those who use these solutions is still small, 89% of those polled said they see the value of a cloud-based BDR.
“Complete protection and recovery is imperative for all companies, regardless of size,” said Diane Hagglund, Senior Research Analyst, Dimensional Research. “Given the staggering complexity and limitation of traditional on-premise backup and recovery solutions, there is clear value in fully transitioning to a single, comprehensive cloud-based solution. Although cloud-based backup and recovery is still early in adoption, the recovery market is ripe for innovation, and cloud is the next frontier. I look forward to seeing how this market grows in the coming years.”
For more survey results, please visit the site here.
