Asigra: Cloud Backup on the Rise

Demand for software-as-a-service and cloud-based backup services will experience an uptick boosted by more comprehensive data protection strategies, according to a TechValidate survey commissioned by cloud backup firm Asigra Inc.

The findings show most organizations rely on a mix of point solutions and hybrid infrastructure for backup and recovery; 66 percent of respondents have some form of physical device backup solution, while 41 percent use a virtual machine backup. In addition, 38 percent rely on tape backup, while 24 percent have a cloud or online backup solution on hand. Only 7 percent use USB hard drives for backup.

The end result is more complexity, which leaves room for channel-led assessments and consulting to a slew of optimization and performance management services. Regarding backup solutions, the majority of users say they want a comprehensive offering that can cover everything from cloud to on-premises applications. Users (52 percent) say that the solution needs to be fast, secure and platform-agnostic.

Just 10 percent indicate a stand-alone cloud application backup solution would meet their needs, but that figure might grow. There’s overarching cloud market trends, and by almost all reports, cloud adoption is just hitting its stride. A recent IDC report indicates the cloud software market reached $22.9 billion in 2011, representing a 30.9 percent CAGR. That figure is expected to reach $67.3 billion by 2016 at a 24 percent CAGR.

And SaaS delivery is expected to far outpace traditional software product delivery, experiencing a growth rate five times faster than that of the software market. SaaS is projected to become one of the biggest growth drivers behind functional software markets, according to IDC.

The uptick of cloud adoption has made it harder to protect online application data that meets all efficiency, speed, security and compliance requirements.

“While SaaS/Cloud applications have introduced higher levels of simplicity and value to organizations, they have also altered the way IT professionals must architect their backup environments,” said Tracy Staniland, Asigra vice president of corporate marketing.

The ability to cover a multitude of environments is one of the biggest drivers that will bring cloud backup into its prime. Backup and recovery, which reached a growth plateau as a mature market, is on course for another growth spurt. An ABI Research report projects the business continuity and disaster recovery market will grow to almost $40 billion by 2015, up from $24.3 billion in 2009.

Some of the biggest drivers will be cloud and virtualization, which will propel adoption for some of the most obvious reasons: reduced costs, scalability, a deployable on-demand model, and streamlined implementation and management capabilities.

Cloud backup creates attractive efficiencies for users aiming to increase ROI. Cloud backup services are emerging as an attractive upsell to the SMB — one of the largest customer bases and voracious adopters of cloud applications and services.

Growth of cloud backup already appears have a strong start. CA Technologies Inc. overhauled its ARCserve platform, which enables backup and recovery capabilities on all operating systems across cloud, virtual or physical on premise machines.

In October, Carbonite bulked up cloud backup capabilities with the acquisition of Zmanda Inc. And Asigra rolled out enhancements to its backup offering, which includes cloud application support, mobile endpoint support, advanced virtual disaster recovery for VMware environments and data recovery across the enterprise.

From the partner perspective, cloud backup makes a lot of sense. Its scalability and ease of integration features play well into other solution sets, making it an easy add-on or complementary to almost any bundled solution. It also provides a recurring revenue stream and serves as a foundation for partners to offer a variety of their own services. And that includes any number of security and compliance niches, which checks off a lot of boxes for GRC partners.