After years of reluctant uptake and cautious optimism, modern businesses have finally placed the proper level of importance on digital transformation efforts and the cloud. As a result, many of these modern businesses are soaring in productivity and profit.
This is just in time, too, as we’re creating an exponential amount of data with every click, drag, and swipe of our fingers. With this data, savvy businesses are continuing to develop creative and innovative ways to mine and monetise. According to one extreme statistic from the International Institute for Analytics, this will grant said businesses $430 billion in productivity benefits over their competitors by 2020.
Data has become so invaluable that businesses around the world are surely doing their utmost to protect it with Fort Knox levels of security protocols, and undoubtedly turning to their new friend, the cloud, for help with the process, right?
Close, but no cigar
In recognition of World Backup Day, we spoke to 432 EMEA IT professionals, business executives, and backup administrators in a bid to better understand our approach to backup and the cloud. The results showed an industry, somewhat understandably, struggling to backup an increasingly complicated and distributed environment.
Over three quarters of respondents (77 percent) backup between one and five sites, while a smaller (but still significant) number (8 percent) admitted to doing so for a staggering 26 sites or more. In addition, recipients highlighted a plethora of different data sources they need to protect throughout their organisations, including databases (94 percent), email (76 percent), and proprietary application data (66 percent). When you consider the complexities associated with such high numbers and disparate data deposits, you can begin to grasp the challenge IT teams face in ensuring everything remains protected.
Another frightening find which speaks volumes about how far EMEA still has to go when it comes to education around backup, is that 41 percent of respondents admitting to using no third-party backup solutions — specifically when using Office 365 (an increasingly popular platform used by 60 percent of respondents). Of those surveyed, 41 percent believed Microsoft provided all the support they could possibly need to protect their data, when this is actually far from the truth.
GDPR legislation requires that firms have “the ability to restore the availability and access to personal data in a timely manner in the event of a physical or technical incident.” Should your organisation have a serious outage, Office 365’s recycle bin that empties after 93 days isn’t going to cut the mustard.
Take the headache away before it’s too late
It’s understandably headache-inducing to protect so much data from so many sources, but it does not have to be, especially for those backing up 26 sites or more! There’s a perfect storm brewing when you have a complicated or distributed environment, a complex task to carry out, and new compliance regulations to hit.
So, what’s the answer? For those companies drowning in the complexity of their task, a managed services solution is vital in keeping the IT teams’ collective heads above water and allowing them to better focus on topline operations.
Backup is something that can stop your business being crippled by ransomware or natural disaster. It needs to run smoothly in the background, leaving you safe in the knowledge that it will be waiting for you, should the worst occur.
The combination of these elements make it a perfect task to outsource — and suddenly your IT team has more time to actually spend on other projects. Overnight, your managed services partner can help you adhere to industry best practice, protect all your data types and sources, and simplify your data storage for instant, easy visualisation. Furthermore, they can use their expertise to ensure it meets compliance regulations.
After all, nobody needs their backups until they do, at which point it’s much too late.
Photo: JeDo_Foto / Shutterstock
The wow for me was this line “Office 365’s recycle bin that empties after 93 days isn’t going to cut the mustard.” Thank you for sharing this important flaw/challenge with relying on this.