Organizations not protecting their cloud and SaaS data effectively: Study

A recent research by Barracuda’s study, titled Closing Backup and Recovery Gaps reveals new details about the attitudes and approaches SMBs have when it comes to backing up and recovering data, the impact that cloud and SaaS solutions are having on data protection strategies, and confusion that is exposing firms to significant risk. Barracuda surveyed more than 1,000 IT professionals, business executives, and backup administrators worldwide to find out more about their data protection strategies.

Backup challenges and confusion

Overall the study shows that the migration to the cloud is well underway, but organizations are not protecting their cloud and SaaS data effectively. Key findings include:

• Data protection is becoming more challenging to achieve with the rise of multi-cloud and multi-site backup.
  • 57% of respondents are responsible for backing up more than two sites
  • 35% are using multiple cloud services
• IT decision makers are warming up to the cloud, and the use of the cloud as a secondary backup location is on the rise.
  • 64% of global organizations say they replicate backup data to the cloud
  • 36% still do not follow this best practice
• IT teams view email, SQL, and proprietary application data as the most common workloads to protect with backup, but SaaS data is not viewed as critical, which puts business continuity at risk.
  • Only 16% of respondents report that they back up their SaaS data.
• Office 365 is one of the most popular cloud-based productivity platforms, but Office 365 confusion is exposing firms to significant risk
  • More than 60% of SMBs are using Office 365 to drive business success
  • 40% are not using any third-party backup tools to protect mission-critical data because they believe Office 365 provides all the backup they need, which is unlikely to be true

“While more IT professionals are embracing ways the cloud can support data protection, such as replicating backup data to the cloud, many are making dangerous assumptions about SaaS and cloud data that are putting organizations at risk,” says Chris King, Director, Product Management, Data Protection at Barracuda Networks. “IT still needs to consider how data is protected, even after migrating to cloud or SaaS applications.”

Today's complex infrastructures and targeted cyber attacks require a complete backup strategy that protects data wherever it resides — on‑premises or in the cloud. Barracuda’s Backup solutions offer continuous data protection and the flexibility of replicating to a remote physical or virtual appliance, or to the cloud. Its Cloud-to-Cloud Backup provides comprehensive, cost-effective and scalable protection.

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