Virtualization, Cloud Pose Backup and Recovery Challenge: Survey

A survey of more than 3,000 small to medium-size businesses (SMB) conducted by the Ponemon Institute revealed that while attitudes towards backup and recovery differ widely around the world, businesses everywhere want a single backup and recovery solution for physical, virtual and cloud environments. The vast majority (68 percent) of IT managers agree that their greatest challenge in a hybrid environment is moving data between the three environments, yet the average business currently uses at least two or three separate backup solutions making disaster recovery (DR) more complicated.

On the global scale, U.S.-based SMBs fell short of the international average, ranking 10th overall for backup and DR readiness. Approximately a third of U.S. businesses reported having no backup and DR strategy in place, citing lack of budget and resources as the primary reasons.
 
Without these resources and technologies to fortify a DR strategy, more than half (62 percent) reported they were concerned about their ability to avoid substantial downtime in the event of a serious incident. Only 40 percent of respondents said they were confident in recovering quickly, and 38 percent said they believed their IT staffs were qualified to handle DR operations in response to an event or disaster. Overall, the findings revealed that the U.S. spent consistently less (10 percent) on backup and DR than other countries.

Sponsored by Acronis, a provider of backup and recovery solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments, the Global Disaster Recovery index serves as a barometer to measures IT managers' confidence in their backup and recovery operations. To create the Index, each country was ranked based on its average responses from 11 questions about their confidence in backup and DR readiness, capabilities and practices. Questions covered technology, resources, procedures and executive buy-in.

The survey found Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland to be the most confident on matters of DR: This group of countries has the best boardroom buy-in, controls and procedures and documented policies for their backup and DR operations. "As a result they have the highest confidence that they can recover quickly in the event of system downtime, more than 50 percent more confident than the average," the report stated.

Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan had the best qualified staff in place to execute backup and DR operations in the wake of a serious incident, according to survey results, although the report also noted they are the most likely to use separate backup solutions for physical and virtual environments (67 percent, 66 percent and 70 percent of organizations respectively).

Businesses in the UK, Australia and the US all scored poorly on their confidence in their ability to avoid downtime in the event of a serious incident (27 percent, 44 percent and 38 percent of businesses respectively). When it comes to successfully recovering from a serious incident, the Australians were the least confident. Just 22 percent of Australian businesses said they felt that they would be able to recover quickly in the event of downtime, compared to a global average of 50 percent.

"It's not surprising that IT managers across the world differ so much with regards to their attitudes towards backup and DR," said Jason Donahue, CEO of Acronis. "However, it is clear that what SMBs are looking for, regardless of location is one reliable, easy-to-use solution which spans across physical, virtual and cloud platforms. By launching this Index, we hope businesses will benefit from comparing their backup practices against national and global benchmarks."