Survey: Cloud App Backups Lag Behind a Booming SaaS Market

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It’s no secret that the software as a service (SaaS) market is booming, but what does that mean for data protection in the cloud?

Cloud backup specialist Asigra commissioned TechValidate to explore what kind of business data is residing on the cloud and how enterprises are safeguarding it. The survey’s results, while encouraging for cloud services vendors, expose the challenges that IT managers face in rolling the cloud into their backup strategies.

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Asigra and TechValidate discovered that just 22 percent of respondents had included SaaS application data in their backup infrastructures. And considering the growing popularity of cloud services, they have a lot of catching up to do.

Fifty-five percent of those polled for the study currently use Salesforce.com, and many aren’t stopping there. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (74 percent) said that they expect to increase their usage of other cloud applications.

That means rethinking how to approach backups, according to Tracy Staniland, vice president of Corporate Marketing for Asigra. “While SaaS/Cloud applications have introduced higher levels of simplicity and value to organizations, they have also altered the way IT professionals must architect their backup environments,” she said in a company statement.

Already, there are signs that IT managers are getting the message. When it comes to cloud-based application data, sixty-eight percent are seeking solutions that protect both cloud and on-premise applications. Speed and enterprise-grade security were important factors for 52 percent.

Most organizations are reluctant to put their complete trust in the cloud, the companies discovered. Just 10 percent said that a cloud-only application backup would suffice.

IT shops are using a wide variety of backup methods, at least among those with some sort of solution in place.

Sixty-six percent use a physical storage device of some sort while 41 percent employ virtual machine backups. Tape, that old data archival stand-by, was used by 38 percent of survey takers while 24 percent used an online backup service. USB hard drives pulled data backup duty for seven percent of respondents.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.