51% of Organisations ‘Very Confident’ in Backup Capabilities – Databarracks

Research from Databarracks Ltd. reveals over half of organisations are ‘very confident’ in their IT backup capabilities
 
Tenth anniversary of the Data Health Check reveals insights into changing attitudes amongst IT professionals
 
It revealed organisational confidence in IT backup capabilities has risen dramatically over the past decade. Over 50% of organisations feel ‘very confident’ in the state of their backup solutions, which is up from 33% in 2008.
 
First released 10 years ago, the survey is based on over 400 IT decision-makers on a range of topics relating to IT practices within their business.

Notable highlights from this year’s survey include:
· Confidence in backup solutions has risen since 2008. An 18% point increase means 51% of participants are now very confident in their backup capabilities.
· This increased confidence is against a backdrop of growing data volumes, with 29% of organisations (from 12% in 2008) handling over 100TB of data.
· In 2008, 47% of organisations had not encrypted their backup data. This fell to 33% in 2018.
· The average frequency of restores has stayed fairly consistent over the years. Additionally, restore testing has decreased with those ‘not testing’ dropping from 20% in 2008 to 15% in 2018.

Average frequency of restores
Click to enlarge
 

Commenting on these findings, Peter Groucutt, MD, Databarracks, says: “Considering macro trends in IT over the past 10 years – the explosion of data, ever increasing cyber threats, the emergence of cloud and with it the shift to greater mobile and remote working – it’s easy to see where strains are being placed on an organisation’s backup capabilities and why confidence might be shaken. Our findings show this is not the case, which is encouraging to see. More and more firms have a BC and DR plan in place and importantly, plans are being reviewed and regularly tested, which will breed confidence.”
 
He highlights other areas for organisations to address: “Despite more businesses encrypting backup data, a third of organisations not doing this is too high. Whether you’re backing up data to physical media like tape or disk, or whether you’re transferring data offsite, over the internet, the possibilities for it being intercepted are very real with serious ramifications for those at fault.
 
“Considering it from the perspective of GDPR, while not mandating the use of encryption in the regulation itself, it does require an organisation to demonstrate its approach to compliance. If an organisation chooses not to encrypt, then a business would need to demonstrate what alternative methods it uses to safeguard data or face severe penalties.”
 
He concludes: “We hope the next 12 months sees confidence continue to rise in backup solutions. More regular testing of restores as well as greater numbers of businesses adopting encryption into their backup strategies, will certainly improve this.”

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Only 43% tested DR processes over past 12 months
2017.12.19 | Press Release