Introduction to Modern Data Protection
Veeam is proud to release the findings of yet another research project, the 2024 Data Protection Trends Report, which is the industry’s largest independent research on backup and data protection. This unbiased research survey was conducted by a third-party research firm to understand overall market drivers and strategies.
With 2024 well underway, the data landscape continues to evolve and as such the need for modern data protection solutions is greater than ever. While all organizations have unique wants and needs based on their infrastructure, overarching themes are consistently visible within the data. 2024 reveals a significant interest in organizations changing their primary backup solution, including what factors would convince them to and why.
The answers to this can be indicative of what folks are most concerned about. It may not be surprising that in 2024, the most common scenario driving why organizations want to change their backup solutions is… cybersecurity.
Deciphering ‘Modern’ in Data Protection
As workloads keep evolving, protection solutions aren’t keeping up. Implementing modern data protection and cybersecurity measures is becoming more important than ever before. It is no longer enough for organizations just to guard sensitive data. Data needs to be backed up, immutable, and — most importantly — reliably recoverable. Unless data is proven to be assuredly recoverable, it is not actually protected nor secure. This shift in understanding regarding the reality of modern data’s needs is driving the trend of enterprises seeking out more modern solutions. In addition, companies are looking for more within their ‘modern’ data protection solution; cloud mobility and manageability are also high-ranking issues in the industry — showing that the organizations are searching for a broader range of capabilities that address the complexities of modern IT in 2024.
As shown, organizations want a solution modern and capable enough to ensure:
- Survivability from ransomware
- Flexibility as they continue embracing hybrid-/multi-cloud architectures
- And orchestration to make all of these tasks easier
They want to be agile, manageable, and resilient. For the past few years, ‘modern’ or ‘innovative’ data protection has meant including integration between data protection and cybersecurity tools, as well as being able to provide protection across myriad cloud scenarios. For the second year in a row, the most common and most important aspect of a modern data protection solution is one that integrates with cybersecurity tools, presumably across a range of capabilities from detection/remediation through to ensuring immutable repositories to recover from. It is notable that 2 out of 5 (41%) consider some aspect of agility or flexibility in cloud scenarios as the most important characteristic of a modern solution.
Hybrid-flexibility is another key aspect of a modern solution. Organizations want to have the power to migrate a workload from on-premises to a cloud, from one cloud to another cloud, or the ability to disaster recovery to a cloud host. These hybrid-cloud options are all in the top ten since the mechanics of transforming an on-prem server (physical or virtual) into a cloud-hosted instance can be similar, if your data protection solution truly is ‘modern.’
An interesting aspect of implementing a modern data protection solution comes in the form of having professionals on hand when disaster strikes. Engaging a managed service provider for Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) gives you not only offsite retention of your data and an alternative consumption model for your backup/DR software and hardware, but also access to experts that can accelerate your time-to-value and reduce the complexity of your daily IT operations. All of this allows your organization to maximize your resources and ensure all of your data meets your retention and availability SLAs.
Ransomware and Modern Data Protection
As discussed earlier, the integration of cybersecurity with data protection is the top feature organizations are looking for from modern backup solutions in 2024. Senior leaders in companies recognize that ransomware is a ‘when’ not an ‘if’ that requires reimagining some of the data protection assumptions that many held on to for too long.
Why Modern Data Protection is a Business Imperative
As organizations move into 2024, a clear theme is visible throughout IT teams around the need for a modern data protection solution that aligns with both the cyber-threats facing all organizations as well as the aspiration to leverage clouds for their best benefits. Companies are looking for cloud mobility, manageability, cybersecurity, and (most importantly) assured reliability.
To learn more about other factors impacting organizations in 2024, check out this short video on change drivers and what organizations are looking for:
If you have questions about this or any of Veeam’s other research projects, contact us at StrategicResearch@veeam.com.