According to a new study, IT decision makers are grappling with this challenge: How do you protect your critical business data and at the same time drive down costs in your data center?
Thanks to the global financial crisis and simultaneous explosion in data growth, top priorities of IT decision makers continue to be data growth, data protection and backup according to a February, 2009 study commissioned by HP and conducted by Forrester Consulting.1 The reasons: The recent financial crisis will likely result in increased regulatory oversight, more legal action and greater data scrutiny. And, regardless of the economy, enterprises will need to backup more data than ever.
According to the study, 57 percent of organizations consider backup and recovery as a top priority in 2009, with 59 percent expecting their backup and recovery budgets to increase this year. Additional priorities are data security, regulatory compliance, consolidation and virtualization, as well as encryption.
Although many data-backup challenges were cited for the coming year, several stood out in the Forrester study:
Despite shrinking budgets and fewer resources, respondents predict steady increases in their data capacity needs. Eighty-one percent of those surveyed measure data protection capacity in the hundreds of terabytes, with 11 percent using 500 TBs or greater. Seventy-five percent of respondents plan on increasing capacity in the coming year, with 53 percent of those expecting at least a 40-percent jump.
The data backup marketplace continues to feature a mix of disk-based and tape-based systems. Even though tape is widely utilized—with 72% deploying a tape system, and 15% planning to deploy more tape in the coming year—Forrester Consulting’s survey found that disk-based data protection is now the system of choice:
The reasons respondents use disk-based protection in place of or in addition to tape, vary:
This category is especially pertinent for those making the switch from tape to disk because it highlights the advantages of disk-based systems. Because tape systems possess more mechanical components, they fail more regularly and are more difficult to troubleshoot. Additionally, storing backup data on disk enables users to find information more quickly, and eliminates the possibility of lost or damaged tape.
The survey also identified the most important features for a disk-based backup:
Among the primary tools IT professionals use to trim budgets is server virtualization, with 67% saying it will have an impact (and 22% saying it will have a major impact). However, backup and data protection are key concerns for successful virtualization:
