Veeam recently published its Data Protection Trends Report for 2020. This report is a little different from what you'd expect from a data protection vendor:
- It's an unbiased survey of 1,550 enterprises (greater than 1,000 employees each) from around the world. Veeam contracted with a third-party analyst firm to conduct the blind survey so that Veeam could help our marketplace quantify and understand what organizations are struggling with and aspiring to achieve in data protection.
- The industry report is an unfiltered view on the data and its inferences into what IT and data protection look like today, including responses from both IT professionals and senior executives. You will also notice a few green side-bar boxes where the Veeam Product Managers added Veeam's perspective to the report, as well.
- The data was interpreted, and the report authored, by two former industry analysts. My coauthor, (), was the lead author on the Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Backup for years, while () was the principal analyst for data protection at the Enterprise Strategy Group. We each have 30+ years in the data protection industry, starting as IT professionals, then developing backup products within the vendor community, later serving as industry analysts, and eventually joining Veeam; both as Vice Presidents of Strategy.
As an aside, Dave and I also host a weekly LinkedIn LiveStream called "" where one or both of us talk about industry research and news; again, with an unbiased perspective for the first 20 minutes and then a short Veeam perspective to close out the half hour. Check us out at LINK.
To me, the single, most interesting survey question was "Which of the following would drive your organization to change its primary backup solution to a new solution or service?"
The top answer to “Why change?” is RELIABILITY! Having been published by Veeam, whose tagline for years was "It Just Works," this might appear self-serving. But since Veeam had no influence over the research panel or respondents, I would take it as validation. Customers want what they paid for — and in backup software, that means an assurance to restore. It would be like asking someone why they were changing cars and their answer being, "So that it gets me where I want to go." If someone told me that, I would ask, "If your current car doesn’t get you where you want to go, why do you still have that car?"
The next drivers towards change can be summarized as #2 Economics (hardware costs, software costs, improved ROI/TCO) and #3 Better Outcomes (improved RPO/RTO SLAs, reduced complexity, ease of management). And of course, you cannot have an IT Modernization conversation without cloud services being part of it (#4 moving from on-prem to cloud-based protection). But according to the data, the cloud, better outcomes, nor economics matter, if it isn’t reliable.
That was one question out of the 40 that were asked in the survey. As former analysts, Dave and I stand by the blind approach that the survey was run through and the insights derived from its data. As Veeamers, we're also happy that our products and services align with what many IT professionals and executives are seeking.
So please:
- Download the "2020 Data Protection Trends" report
- Consider how your organization lines up with the research trends
- Ask yourself how you'd answer those same questions
And for bonus credit, don’t forget to check out our livestream on LinkedIn – Mondays at Noon Eastern US time.
If Dave or I can help you or you’d like to discuss the data, please find us on Twitter as and . If you found the information useful, feel free to also comment below. As always, we're here to help.
