Cloud based data protection strategy will be a trend

42% of companies say cloud computing will play an important role in its next year's disaster recovery and data protection strategy. At the same time, the survey results show that as cloud computing penetration increases, companies are beginning to realize the importance of cloud resources to business continuity.

The survey, "Views: Data protection and cloud," points to an upward trend in data protection investment. 1,086 business organizations from eight countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific region were surveyed, and almost all respondents (96% per cent) said their data-protection budgets remained unchanged or increased in 2010-2011, with One-third (34%) companies adding data protection investments. At the same time, more than half of the companies (57% per cent) say they will invest in managing a hybrid cloud environment, while private clouds will complement the public cloud resources. One-third of Companies (33%) plan to use this investment to make the public cloud a backup solution for the enterprise, and 31% of companies will invest in better protection of the private cloud environment. The survey is intended to explore the future of these budgets over the next year, and the findings once again show the importance of cloud computing.

"The results of our research today show that more and more companies are planning to make cloud computing part of a business continuity strategy," said Chris Ross, vice president of the European, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, CA Technologies Data Management division. We see a large number of companies leveraging cloud computing to achieve external backup and disaster recovery. The findings also show that many companies are looking for a more mature hybrid cloud model. This suggests that there is a need for a solution that can help companies develop data protection strategies at their own pace, whether this strategy is to adopt new local (premise) technologies, cloud as a backup medium, or move to a more complex hybrid cloud model. ”

Data loss accidents occur frequently and lack of data protection

Despite the adoption of cloud computing technology, the growth trend in data protection budgets is optimistic, but companies are still under threat of security. Nearly all (95%) Companies surveyed acknowledged that they had had applications and data loss in the previous year. It system failures are the most common causes of these accidents, including network, memory, or software failures, which are affected by nearly three-fourths (74%) of surveyed enterprises.

It is clear that companies are not prepared to deal with such incidents, resulting in excessive data loss ratios. Only One-fourth (27%) of companies can confidently say they have a comprehensive disaster recovery plan in place. In addition, while up to 90% per cent of companies are testing disaster recovery plans at least once a year, 38% of companies fail to achieve predetermined recovery time and recovery-point objectives in their tests. When asked about the obstacles to improving data protection and disaster recovery measures, 45% said they faced a shortage of budget and 42% said the difficulties were not supported by corporate management.

"Today, companies of all sizes are aware of the threat of critical data availability, customer service disruption, service level agreements (SLAs) not being implemented, suppliers not supplying products, employee morale and productivity declines," explains Ross. However, surveys show that the company's data protection strategy remains flawed, and that companies face security threats, suggesting that companies need to choose smarter investment strategies. A previous study by CA Technologies shows that the average per-year downtime in the Asia-Pacific region is about $350,000 trillion. Corporate management should compare this loss of downtime with data protection investments that are far less than this number, and this investment ensures that data and applications are adequately and continuously protected. ”

Research methods of this survey report:

May 2011, about 1,086 CA Technologies Asia Pacific Partners completed an online questionnaire survey. The following countries and regions partners participated in this survey: Australia, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)