Backup and recovery is an essential service that businesses rely on to save their skin in the event of catastrophic IT failure or data loss. And when a business buys a backup solution, it seems reasonable to expect that it will do what’s on the box.

Unfortunately for the industry, a June 2020 survey sponsored by Veeam Software Corp. came up with an astonishing statistic.

“[What] came back from our global survey … was: ‘The number one thing that would make us want to change our backup provider is so that the application would backup.’ That is an amazingly shocking statement,” said David Russell (pictured, left), vice president of enterprise strategy at Veeam.

Russell and Jason Buffington (pictured, right), vice president of solutions strategy at Veeam, spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the VeeamOn event. They discussed what organizations are looking for in a modern data protection strategy and the results of Veeam’s “2020 Data Protection Trends” survey. (* Disclosure below.)

Modern data protection has to be ‘cloudy’

That so many organizations are concerned about backup performance is a direct result of failure to keep up with modern hybrid backup and recovery solutions. According to the survey, 40% of organizations are still protecting data with legacy systems. And the costs are high: 95% have suffered business impact due to unexpected downtime, and 44% have had their brand and integrity damaged.

The budget sucked up in just keeping the lights on is money that would be better allocated to modernization, according to Russell and Buffington. “Digital transformation is about trying to run the business while you’re seeking to grow the business and aspirationally hoping to transform your business to really improve customer intimacy and success of end customers, as well as partners,” Russell said. “If done right, pursuing digital transformation can help you with tactical needs as well as strategic outcome.”

The answer to organizational backup woes is software-defined backup and recovery, according to Buffington. “Modern data protection in general has to be ‘cloudy,’” he said, describing hybrid strategies that integrate on-premises and cloud-based data protection architecture and offer the ability to move data between environments.

Survey results agree. After modernization, companies reported a 53% improvement in business continuity confidence and reduced impact of downtime.

“Backup should not sit on an island of its own,” Buffington stated. “It should be a cohesive part of a broader IT experience that’s part of the provisioning and systems framework.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VeeamOn event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for VeeamOn. Neither Veeam Software Corp., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE