In my last post I introduced the concept of “Active” backup and why it matters for modern IT. I wanted to follow-up with a discussion on the costs (direct and hidden) that complacency around your existing backup solution is having on your business. Depending on how you view backup, a typical response from IT is to simply, maybe mindlessly, renew what you already have every year when the maintenance contract comes up. This all-to-common action is costing you more than you think.
So what should you do? Step one is identifying and sizing this impact by looking at how you are matching backup to your business. A recent study by Computing Research helps put this in context and outlines the key areas that drive costs. Let’s take a look at two of the key traps customers fall into.
Using a single product that does not/cannot match an applications business criticality– This study indicates that roughly 43% of customers are in this boat. On the surface this seems like a great way to save money, but within this method lurks one of the largest hidden costs – slow recovery. Let’s face it, recovery is what we are after, not backup. This approach is designed to make IT’s life easier from an administrative standpoint, but doesn’t address the business need around rapid recovery (RPO/RTO) and the SLAs required by business critical applications. This approach can be penny wise – dollar foolish to the bottom line as the number of recoveries rise, and the time in which complete recovery is expected continues to decline – dramatically. You face serious costs in downtime (real dollars) and end-user/customer bad-will every time IT cannot deliver in the timeframe desired.
Using many products, but without control and/or optimization - this is the second most common approach to meeting business needs with 28% of respondents reporting that this was their method. On the positive side, this approach at a minimum better matches the needs of applications and business owners. They often see improvements in recovery and have tools that better meet their needs, but at the cost of complexity and operational inefficiency. Under this model there often exist ownership issues and process disconnects that hinder, rather than help. In fact, the top 4 issues cited from this approach are:
- Complex processes that slow recovery (recall recovery is what we are really after),
- Compatibility between products,
- Licensing,
- Support and training issues.
It’s not that having different backup approaches or even interfaces is always bad, but if done without operational consideration this cure might be worse than the disease.
In case you were wondering – the third most common approach is to ignore protecting applications altogether (17% of respondents citing this as their choice). Needless to say this is fraught with more than just costs, but true business risk for failure, can you say “going out of business”?
So what is a company to do? For the close to 65% of customers who are not directly addressing application and business resiliency with a new approach, that’s the place to start. Stop robotically renewing your current backup ISV’s maintenance contract and treating backup as if its mindless infrastructure and let business resiliency be part of the value added IT service you provide – a core application in its own rite.
For those customers who have started matching backup to their business needs - congratulations, it’s a great first step. Your next move is to focus on operationally tying those products together so that they are not unnecessarily contributing to your overall storage growth and driving up costs in areas you did not expect (more on this in future blogs). In doing this you will also have the opportunity to ensure the ownership and processes necessary for rapid recovery are in place.
Where are you on this journey? Share your experiences in the comments section.
Eric Endebrock