Powering clients to a future shaped by growth
A Frost & Sullivan White Paper
2021 CIO Guide to
Modern Data Protection
By: Roberta Gamble, Partner and Vice President,
Frost & Sullivan
Sponsored By: Veeam
Contents
3 Data Protection Drives Resiliency
5 From Automation to Autonomy: Managed Disaster
Recovery (DR) takes Data Protection and Resiliency to
the Next Level
6 Beyond Management: Wielding Data’s Potential
7 Next Steps for Optimized Data Backup, Recovery,
Management, and Dexterity
8 About Veeam
9 Endnotes
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2021 CIO Guide to Modern Data Protection 3
Many organizations may need to rethink their mindset on data backup and recovery. Advanced,
automation-driven data management solutions that provide unified coverage across
infrastructures and formats can turn data from a cost and risk to be controlled into a participatory
player in a more comprehensive operational strategy.
The sudden pivot to remote work of the customer experience in 2020 created a spike in the
volume and type of data facing organizations. Many businesses turned to the cloud to scale up
data capacity and agility. However, data backup solutions were often not upgraded in parallel:
despite its critical importance, data backup has been one area where businesses have often
had a “set it and forget it” philosophy. This tactic can backfire, leaving organizations vulnerable
to failures, cybersecurity breaches, and rising data storage and maintenance cost. Along with
enhanced protection, today’s backup solutions now contain significantly more capabilities, enable
better data utilization, and provide stronger ROIs than antiquated systems of the past. Businesses
revisiting their data strategies need to ensure modern backup, recovery, and management is a
fundamental part of the picture.
Data Protection Drives Resiliency
Risk mitigation is a key tenet for business continuity and resilience. While organizations typically
retained their overarching modernization goals in 2020, strategies to meet those goals tended to
focus more on resilience than growth: Frost & Sullivan research1 shows that the top two priorities
for businesses in 2020 were improving efficiency and enabling a better customer experience.
The changes brought forth by events in 2020 also resulted in a significant uptick in the volume
and diversity of data being generated and streaming into organizations. The move to remote work
meant new systems had to be in place that could accommodate thousands—even hundreds of
thousands—of employees now logging in from new equipment or personal devices. In-person
interactions, whether with customers or value chain partners, had to be virtualized, which
required new tools, apps, and features and resulted in even more data. To capture, process, and
utilize waves of new and different information, organizations turned to the cloud.
Hybrid cloud multi-cloud
usage rose adoption rose
14% 54%
2020 2025
over
50%
of new workloads will
be cloud-hosted as
opposed to on-premise.
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2021 CIO Guide to Modern Data Protection 4
The cloud is seen as a leading strategy to ensure
data hygiene and resiliency, but it also creates
problems by obscuring organization visibility. On
the one hand, 79% of IT professionals interviewed
by Frost & Sullivan planned to improve their disaster
recovery (DR) capabilities by moving to the cloud2 .
As cloud usage expands,
On the other hand, cloud usage can be ad-hoc
rather than closely tied to an organization’s strategic
many organizations find
growth objectives, making it difficult for IT teams to themselves juggling
identify and mitigate gaps in backup and recovery.
As cloud usage expands, many organizations find multiple cloud providers:
themselves juggling multiple cloud providers: an
average of three, per Frost & Sullivan research. an average of three, per
Cybersecurity attacks also rose precipitously in
2020. For example, detected and blocked attempts Frost & Sullivan research.
at ransomware rose 715% in the 12 months ending
in June 2020 as compared to the 12 months prior3 .
The combination of growing security risks, rapid
cloud adoption, and the lack of prioritizing data
backup and recovery creates a tenuous situation
that may result in unforeseen gaps, security
vulnerabilities, and lost productivity.
Protecting and backing up data is among the most
elemental responsibilities of IT, with the “3-2-1 rule”
(three copies of the data in two different formats,
plus one copy off-site) a common guideline that
illustrates the need for spreading risk; hence, most
organizations employ this guideline at some level.
Engaging backup and disaster recovery suppliers
is increasing as well, with 46% of companies
anticipated to use a BaaS provider by 2023, up from
29% in 2020 4 . Despite this trend, current processes
can be antiquated, and older systems are rife with
risk: their reliance on manual tasks make them prone
to human error, leading to efficacy gaps that leave
data vulnerable.
Data storage costs are spiraling upwards as well,
whether on-premises (on-prem) or related to
unplanned cloud capacity growth. While the amount
of data generated in 2020 was exceptional, the
expansion of data generation has been ongoing for
years and is not likely to abate. Systems may not
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2021 CIO Guide to Modern Data Protection 5
have been built to withstand rapid increases
Data management
in data or to handle information on the cloud,
in multi- or hybrid cloud scenarios, and across platforms can also
different platforms and even formats.
increase IT efficiency by
The improvements that new and advanced
solutions have over archaic ones are stark: for
30% and respond 73%
one, the cost and coverage picture is much faster to problems.
better. Modern solutions that employ artificial
– Veeam
intelligence (AI)-driven automation need
less manpower to run, and responsive cloud
storage keeps data costs in check—by some estimates, these solutions can be as much as 50%
less5 costly in terms of total cost of ownership than their older counterparts. Data management
platforms can also increase IT efficiency by 30% and respond 73% faster to problems 6 .
In terms of performance, advanced archival solutions furnish much higher levels of data
protection, reporting near-perfect RPO and RTO. Scalable cloud storage means comprehensive
coverage across all infrastructures, platforms, and formats that are accessed and managed
through a unified vantage point. It also means faster duplication and redundancy. The cloud’s
computing power is what allows AI-based automation to not only be more effective and efficient,
but to learn and improve over time. Cross-platform capabilities go beyond providing improved
organizational visibility to also include data mobility across platforms, further improving storage,
access, and utilization.
Within the realm of data protection, advanced solutions provide better security, value, and the
ability to grow and evolve with an organization. In more sophisticated scenarios, modern backup
solutions can even help organizations reach into and leverage stored data to augment the growing
tools that require vast amounts of information. Organizations are realizing that they need ways to
utilize all data more intelligently.
From Automation to Autonomy: Managed Disaster
Recovery (DR) takes Data Protection and Resiliency
to the Next Level
Protection is non-negotiable, yet modern providers can do more than protect data: they can
manage data intelligence and build data trust. Effective data management draws on automation
to streamline critical functions such as backup scheduling, replication management, and file
restoration orchestration. As noted earlier, a major benefit of automation is reduced human
intervention. This lessens the risk of mistakes that can lead to anything from a missed update
to a compliance infraction. It also removes a potential threat vector: an estimated 30% of data
breaches have internal collaborators, whether intentional or not. Advanced systems are also
more efficient. They are built to automatically find the quickest, most direct backup and recovery
methods, reduce recovery times, increase data availability, and to simplify process management.
Over time, AI-based solutions can determine the best place to store and retrieve data based on
usage patterns.
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2021 CIO Guide to Modern Data Protection 6
While all data needs to be secure, some needs to be more secure: market performance trends
used by an investment firm, for example, may not have the same security demands as a client’s
account information. Data is also accessed at different times and frequencies. Intelligent
automation helps ensure that the right protection and access are optimally executed from the
start. It can also learn how security needs evolve over time, based on changes in, for example,
usage, policies, or regulations. Imagine the benefits that such a system would have brought to
an organization implementing GDPR compliance or ensuring secure, effective data integration as
part of an acquisition.
Intelligent automation can track, identify, record, and analyze issues to suggest event resolution
strategies. When combined with real-time monitoring, it can accelerate response time and
reduces outages and related downtime. Timely notification helps address any issues that the data
management system itself cannot execute automatically. Over time, however, the system moves
from automation to autonomy, detecting changes in the environment to recognize issues early
on, even to the point of predicting a potential failure before it occurs. Advanced tools learn the
likelihood of actions leading to certain events and how schedules, policies, and workloads should
be managed to ensure complete recoverability. Advanced solutions add significant value through
management, above and beyond critical backup and recovery services. Building intelligence
through advanced orchestration and management creates greater trust in data, providing an
avenue for strategies that more valuable than basic DR.
Beyond Management: Wielding Data’s Potential
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of modern data backup, recovery, and management is
unleashing the potential of underutilized data. Industry-leading data protection providers go
beyond data backup and disaster recovery to include expanded and responsive storage, AI-
driven management, and advanced analytics on a single platform. This is elevating backup and
DR from playing a role in business continuity assurance to being fundamental to an organization’s
comprehensive data strategy.
Businesses should think beyond their data stores as simply a place to run to if and when disaster
strikes. Rather than a cellar that contains copies of missing or corrupt information, comprehensive
backup stores can be the ingredients of an entirely separate “test kitchen” for DevOps and
DevTest teams.
Backup data can automate the environment Businesses should
requirement for update and patch testing and
troubleshooting. It can deliver a protected think beyond their data
production space where new apps can be run stores as simply a place
in a sandbox-type scenario. It can also be a
near-real time resource for advanced analytics, to run to if and when
reducing the need for multiple-data replication disaster strikes.
across the company.
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2021 CIO Guide to Modern Data Protection 7
This is critical for external products as customer experience and ratings are often at the top of the
list of organizational priorities. A Frost & Sullivan survey published in February, 2020 7 showed that
customer satisfaction rates are the top metric organizations use to measure digital transformation
success (44% of respondents), even more so than revenue increases (38%) or cost savings from
automation (37%). Misfires on customer-facing upgrades or new apps can have lasting and
detrimental effects on an organization.
Next Steps for Optimized Data Backup, Recovery,
Management, and Dexterity
Finding new ways to unleash the value of information and insights is (or should be) on the mind of
any IT team. Backup and recovery can be viewed as a stepping stone to a more comprehensive,
secure, and actionable use of data, rather than a box-checking exercise that fails to recognize the
data’s potential value to an organization. Automated systems can free up precious IT resources,
reduce compliance and audit reporting time, feed into trend and root-cause analysis, and build
an autonomous and constantly improving back up system. Advanced systems can be integrated
with active data and insights to create a better customer experience or new revenue stream and
provide safe and accurate testing grounds that enable flawless app rollouts and upgrades.
While every business is on its own unique digital transformation path, there are a few staging
points in which an organization can evaluate, regroup, plan, and execute a more secure and
valuable data optimization strategy. Understanding how modern data protection helps protect,
manage, and utilize data helps move an organization through these steps. Key questions an
organization should ask itself are:
• What is the current data protection strategy, if there is one? Is data backup
currently relegated to storage and recovery based on task, department, or infrastructure?
Or, is there a cohesive program that encompasses all of these aspects without infringing
on productivity?
• What are the costs and time involved to execute current data strategies? Are
expensive IT resources being dedicated to rote or administrative tasks? Would there be
value in reducing data recovery and access time exponentially?
• What role does automation play with the internal or vendor-provided DR
strategy? And, are there tasks that could be improved upon by turning to AI-based
solutions? For example, have any backup windows been missed, could compliance
reporting or DR testing take less time, and might there be gaps across cloud and on-prem
infrastructures?
• Does the current data leveraging strategy include integrating insights across
the organization? Or, is backed up information gathering dust, only secured and stored
for regulatory and security compliance?
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2021 CIO Guide to Modern Data Protection 8
Eliminating data protection gaps, engaging automation, and moving to an autonomous system
reduces risks, improves productivity, and creates robust business continuity. Home-grown or
legacy solutions rarely have this level of capability, especially when advanced vendors can draw
upon automation that incorporates years of field testing and thousands of similar use cases. A
vendor that can support numerous infrastructure types—with an agnostic platform that integrates
advanced security and compliance features—helps organizations focus on their core business,
reduce risks, and be prepared for new and unforeseen challenges.
About Veeam
With more than a decade of innovation, Veeam® continues to distinguish itself as the industry
leader for backup and data protection. While we started our company focused on protecting
virtualized workloads, our breadth of capabilities now spans physical infrastructure to public
clouds like AWS, Azure and GCP, Kubernetes, and SaaS workloads.
Our complete data management platform extends beyond core backup and recovery with
monitoring, disaster recovery, data mobility across cloud and data centers, security focusing on
ransomware protection, and data reuse capabilities. These key components take backup to the
next level. Veeam’s platform growth has resulted in a leadership position in every top tier analyst
ranking, peer review platform, and growth that far outpaces any leading vendor in the market.
Learn more about Veeam Cloud Data Management™.
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2021 CIO Guide to Modern Data Protection 9
Endnotes
1 Source: Frost & Sullivan’s 2020 global cloud user survey
2 Source: Frost & Sullivan’s Data Protection & Management in Light of COVID-19
3 Sources: Bitdefender, as reported by the University of South Florida
4 Source: Veeam
5 Source: Veeam
6 Source: Veeam
7 Source: Frost & Sullivan’s 2021 Predictions—COVID-19 Accelerates CX Investments.
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