The State Of Enterprise Backup

Backup is often called broken or otherwise denigrated, but our survey showed that it's alive and well. Here's a look at backup practices in the enterprise today.

Howard Marks

September 27, 2016

8 Slides
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A popular catch phrase among technology pundits these days is "backup is broken." While it's easy to argue that backup is broken, the reality is that no single technology in today's data center is as important to continuing operations. It might be true that traditional file-by-file backup to tape is too slow and inflexible to meet the modern data center's dynamic needs. However, that doesn't mean that backup technology as a whole is no longer relevant.

At the same time, backup vendors trumpet how wonderful each new technology, or even each release, is. If you don't roll out the forklifts, you're falling behind.

We wanted to cut through the hype and overused phrases of the vendors and pundits to see how real IT teams are protecting their data. We polled 437 IT pros in our third InformationWeek Backup Technologies Survey; all of those surveyed are involved with the evaluation, selection, or use of backup technologies.

Contrary to the popular meme, the survey showed that backup is far from broken. IT pros are pleased with their backup systems even while they might not be diligent in protecting their virtual machines and remote offices or performing enough tests. Let's take a look at the survey findings.

(Image: geralt/Pixabay)

About the Author

Howard Marks

Network Computing Blogger

Howard Marks</strong>&nbsp;is founder and chief scientist at Deepstorage LLC, a storage consultancy and independent test lab based in Santa Fe, N.M. and concentrating on storage and data center networking. In more than 25 years of consulting, Marks has designed and implemented storage systems, networks, management systems and Internet strategies at organizations including American Express, J.P. Morgan, Borden Foods, U.S. Tobacco, BBDO Worldwide, Foxwoods Resort Casino and the State University of New York at Purchase. The testing at DeepStorage Labs is informed by that real world experience.</p><p>He has been a frequent contributor to <em>Network Computing</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>InformationWeek</em>&nbsp;since 1999 and a speaker at industry conferences including Comnet, PC Expo, Interop and Microsoft's TechEd since 1990. He is the author of&nbsp;<em>Networking Windows</em>&nbsp;and co-author of&nbsp;<em>Windows NT Unleashed</em>&nbsp;(Sams).</p><p>He is co-host, with Ray Lucchesi of the monthly Greybeards on Storage podcast where the voices of experience discuss the latest issues in the storage world with industry leaders.&nbsp; You can find the podcast at: http://www.deepstorage.net/NEW/GBoS

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