Complexity of Backup Systems is the top challenge

Here are the results of a survey of 150 enterprise data storage and backup professionals. The findings reveal that data storage administrators find complexity and cost to be the key challenges associated with backup and data recovery.

How many separate devices do you manage for primary storage, backup, and disaster recovery?

The survey asked respondents to rate their challenges relating to storage, backup and disaster recovery.  Over half of the respondents (53 percent) identified complexity of backup systems as the top challenge. In addition, 66 percent identified lengthy backup windows and tight budgets as major obstacles to managing storage and backup, with 52 percent estimating that a complete system backup would require between 12 and 48 hours.

IT managers are facing a crossroads. They need more responsive, easier-to-manage storage systems that won’t break their budgets.  With half of the storage professionals reporting that management time alone for routine backups and restores takes between 10 and 40 hours a month, it’s clear that the situation is quite painful. It’s time for a fundamentally new approach that will simplify storage and backup while providing dramatic improvements in backup times and overall performance. Against this backdrop, perhaps the biggest challenge is to hold the line on capital and operating costs.

Complicating the matter, 41 percent of storage professionals who responded to the survey said they administer 10 devices or more for storage, backup and disaster recovery - each with separate processes and management systems. In addition, 46 percent of the respondents stated that over half of their data in primary storage was not accessed on a daily or even a weekly basis.

In this complex environment, it’s tough to contain system and administration complexity, which translates directly to continued high capital and operating costs, having ‘cold’ data in expensive primary storage exacerbates the issue.
 
Lack of Effective Disaster-Recovery Solutions Comes at a High Price

In the survey, 40 percent of respondents acknowledged that their organizations had no satisfactory disaster recovery solution in place. The risks of being unprotected against an immediate company-wide IT disaster were high, said 32 percent of the respondents, who estimated that performing a complete restore after a company-wide IT disaster would cost their organization more than $500,000. Twenty percent of the respondents assessed the cost to be more than $1 million.

Survey Methodology
The independent survey asked for the opinions of storage professionals in organizations conducting business in the US. More than two-thirds of respondents came from companies with between 200 and 5,000 employees.