New Research Reveals Major Challenges With Traditional Backup And Disaster Recovery

Independent Research Finds Backup and Disaster Recovery Is Critical, Yet Few Companies Could Recover From a Major IT Failure Within One Hour

Mountain View, CA (Marketwired) - Axcient, the leader in cloud-based Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS), today announced the results of an independent, national survey of more than 450 IT professionals on the current state of IT resiliency. Conducted byDimensional Research and commissioned by Axcient, the goal of the survey was to capture data on current trends and experiences with business backup and recovery.

Key findings indicate that the vast majority of organizations identify backup as critical, yet most also believe that current methodologies are incomplete. Furthermore, the current solutions for backup and recovery are complex with 90 percent of IT professionals using multiple backup and recovery tools, and 91 percent report that using multiple tools causes issues. Though a relatively low percentage of businesses are leveraging the cloud to protect their critical data and systems -- roughly 90 percent see value in cloud-based backup and disaster recovery.

Unscheduled downtime has a dramatic financial impact on businesses of all sizes, yet most businesses don't have adequate recovery technologies in place. Seventy-nine percent reported they have had a major IT failure within the past two years, and only 7 percent were confident that they could recover operations within two hours.

With increasingly complex and critical IT environments, companies are looking for ways to fully protect their business, while at the same time providing easier and faster recovery times. To cope, an overwhelming 90 percent report that they have multiple backup and recovery tools in place, and more than 60 percent say that these tools have duplicate functionality. To make matters worse, 91 percent of organizations report that there are challenges in using multiple tools, including the learning curve of utilizing multiple solutions, increased cost of licenses and maintenance, or the management of multiple vendors.

To combat these challenges, the cloud has emerged as a viable alternative to traditional backup and disaster recovery, with the vast majority (89 percent) seeing value in a cloud-based solution for business protection and recovery. Benefits cited include faster recovery time after a disaster (53 percent), less IT time spent on backup and recovery tasks (50 percent), immediate access to applications and data in the event of a disaster (45 percent), ability to fully recover (44 percent), and overall cost reduction (36 percent). Additionally, more than half are more confident using cloud-based recovery solutions in the case of system failure for recovering all operations in two hours or less.

Overview of survey findings:

Backup is critical, but incomplete for most organizations

• Unscheduled downtime has significant business implications
• Applications matter: mid-size companies are backing data and critical applications as well
• Backup has moved beyond just mission-critical, but there are still gaps

Major business interruptions do happen, and IT is held responsible

• Major IT failures are a fact of life; especially for small companies
• Only 7 percent were very confident that they could recover operations within two hours
• Recovery is very disruptive to the IT team
• Mid-level IT staff are held responsible for lost data
• 50 percent say someone could lose their job if data is lost

Fragmented backup tools cause significant problems

• 90 percent of SMBs have multiple backup and recovery tools
• Most have backup and recovery tools with duplicate functionality
• More than half use different tools to back up physical and virtual servers
• Multiple tools are needed to support all environment backup
• 91 percent report challenges using multiple backup and recovery tools
• 71 percent report using multiple backup tools can increase risk

Cloud recovery very desirable, still a growing market

• One-third use cloud-based backup and recovery
• 89 percent see value in cloud-based disaster recovery
• 74 percent use a non-cloud based secondary site for recovery
• 79 percent of those with a non-cloud secondary site would make a change if they had resources

Axcient is re-architecting the way companies protect, access, and recover data and applications by delivering the first Business Recovery Cloud. Axcient's powerfully simple cloud platform mirrors an entire business in the cloud, making it simple to access and restore data from any device, failover IT systems, and virtualize an entire office with a click.

To access the full Dimensional Research survey report, please visit here.

An infographic highlighting key survey finds is available at here.

Survey Methodology
In October 2014, IT and security professionals were invited to participate in an online survey on the topic of IT backup and recovery for SMBs. A total of 453 respondents across the United States and Canada, who worked at companies between 50 and 1,000 employees, completed the survey. Participants included IT executives, IT team managers, hands-on IT professionals and consultants, and represented a wide range of industry verticals.

Supporting Quotes
"Complete protection and recovery is imperative for all companies, regardless of size," said Diane Hagglund, senior research analyst at Dimensional Research. "Given the staggering complexity and limitation of traditional on-premise backup and recovery solutions, there is clear value in fully transitioning to a single, comprehensive cloud-based solution. Although cloud-based backup and recovery is still early in adoption, the recovery market is ripe for innovation, and cloud is the next frontier. I look forward to seeing how this market grows in the coming years."

"Every year, businesses lose more than $40 billion due to application downtime and permanent data loss. This research gives a sense of why. With multiple, disparate, legacy tools for backup and recovery, current solutions are broken. As a result, users are unable to recover their systems in the event of an IT outage, or even worse, a disaster," said Justin Moore, CEO of Axcient. "It's no surprise that IT is starting to recognize the value of the cloud. At Axcient, we're committed to providing the most powerful, yet simple, all-encompassing Recovery-as-a-Service solution that's a one-stop shop for IT professionals, ultimately allowing companies of all sizes to better protect and instantly recover their systems."

Tweet this: New market research about the current state of IT recovery released by @DimensionalResearch @Axcient, full report http://bit.ly/1E4gGrs

Supporting Resources

• Axcient Website: http://axcient.com/
• Technology: http://axcient.com/solutions/
• Blog: http://axcient.com/blog/
• Latest News: http://axcient.com/news/
• Join the Conversation: https://twitter.com/Axcient

About Axcient
Axcient's cloud platform eliminates data loss, keeps applications up and running, and makes sure that IT infrastructures never go down. Designed for today's always-on business, Axcient replaces legacy backup, business continuity, and disaster recovery software and hardware, and reduces the amount of expensive copy data in an organization by as much as 80 percent. By mirroring an entire business in the cloud, Axcient makes it simple to access and restore data from any device, failover IT systems, and virtualize your entire office with a click -- all from a single duplicated copy. Trusted by thousands of businesses to store and protect more than 10 billion files and applications, Axcient maximizes productivity, reduces cost, and eliminates risk. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.