Veeam recently published its Data Protection Trends Reportfor 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, Dave Russell (@BackupDave), was the
lead author on the Gartner Magic Quadrant (MQ) for Backup for years, while I (@JBuff) 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 "Industry Insights" 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.
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 Industry Insights 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 @JBuff and @BackupDave. If you found the information useful, feel free to also comment below. As always, we're here to help.
Jason Buffington
Jason Buffington (@JBuff) is a Vice President within the Product Strategy team at Veeam. He has been in the data protection industry for over 30 years, working on a variety of backup, replication/failover, and BC/DR solutions within data protection vendors and Microsoft. Prior to joining Veeam, Jason was the Principal Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) covering the myriad data protection vendors and providers in the IT industry. Outside of IT, Jason is an active volunteer leader in Scouting BSA.
At Veeam, Jason focuses on accelerating the success of enterprise customers through Veeam's key alliance partnerships, as well as strategic special projects, evangelizing thought leadership at key industry events, and communicating Veeam’s long-term vision and strategy.