Indian businesses focus data protection strategies on cloud computing

BANGALORE, INDIA: CA Technologies announced the results of an independent survey that shows businesses in India are increasingly using cloud computing as a key component of their data protection plans. Fifty three percent say that within the next year, cloud will play an important part of their disaster recovery and data protection strategies. The results show that as the adoption of cloud becomes more widespread, companies are beginning to appreciate that cloud resources offer a solution for business continuity.

The report: ‘Insights: Data Protection and the Cloud’ highlights that data protection investment in continues on an upward trajectory. Of the 201 organizations surveyed across India nearly all (94 percent) have seen their data protection budgets remain flat or increase from 2010 to 2011, with 67 percent enjoying increased investment. The research explored where these budgets will be directed over the coming year, and the findings again underscored the importance of cloud computing.

Over half of companies (59 percent) will focus investment on managing a hybrid cloud environment, where private clouds are supplemented with access to resources in public clouds. Thirty percent plan to invest in using public cloud as a backup solution, and similarly, 25 percent companies will also focus on better protection of their private cloud.

“The research we’ve released today is really encouraging – increasing numbers of companies plan to use cloud as part of their business continuity strategy,” said Chris Ross, VP EMEA & Asia-Pacific, CA Technologies Data Management CSU. “We’re seeing lots of businesses use the cloud for offsite back-up and disaster recovery purposes and the survey indicates that many are now looking to a more sophisticated hybrid cloud model too. This highlights the need for a solution that allows them to evolve their data protection strategy at their own pace – whether it be new on-premise technology, using cloud as backup medium or moving to a more complex hybrid cloud model.”

Frequent data loss incidents, yet inadequate data protection
Despite the integration of cloud and the positive trend in data protection spending, companies are still vulnerable – 88 percent of the surveyed companies admitted they have experienced application and data loss incidents in the last year. The most common cause was IT systems failures – such as network, storage, hardware or software failures – which affected over half (53 percent) of the surveyed organizations.

This high level of data loss is reflected by the companies’ apparent lack of readiness for these types of incidents. Only 27 percent of the companies are confident enough to say they have a full and comprehensive disaster recovery plan. Furthermore, while a high 83 percent run full testing of their disaster recovery plans at least once a year, a significant 56 percent don’t achieve their recovery time and recovery point objectives in these tests.

When asked about the barriers to improving their data protection and disaster recovery operations, 38 percent pointed to inadequate training of IT personnel, 34 percent to lack of employee understanding of procedures and 34 percent to inadequate buy in from senior management.