The State of Cloud Backup

Regular backup of important files and data can be the bane of many IT professionals. It’s like filing your tax return every year: Nobody likes to do it, the experience is hardly ever a positive one, and even thinking about the topic can give you a serious case of indigestion. Some solutions are better than others, but I think most readers would agree that the less obtrusive, more automated, and more reliable backups are, the better.

With all the recent buzz about cloud computing, it was inevitable that talk would eventually turn to using the cloud for backup. Although the mere mention of the phrase “cloud computing” might cause some IT pros to say “Here we go again...,” the basic concept of backing up important data and moving it to a separate location from a primary office has been a valid data insurance policy for decades. Hosted backup providers have been around just as long, offering a valuable (and needed) extra layer of protection for local backups.

Backup and the Cloud

There are a variety of reasons why cloud backup might be a suitable solution for your organization, and it’s clear that the demand for these services is increasing. According to a recent survey by Forrester Research, only 5 percent of small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs) currently use online backup services, remote backup, or cloud backup services—but that number is expected to explode over the next few years.

That same survey revealed that 38 percent of participants plan to use backup services within 2  years, which is a growth rate of 660 percent. Part of that increased willingness to back up files and data to the cloud is being driven by consumer adoption of online backup services such as Mozy, Crashplan, and Carbonite. Millions of people are already using cloud-based file storage in the form of Windows Live SkyDrive, DropBox, Amazon Cloud Drive, and the various storage options for Google Docs, Google Picasa, and other Google services. Apple’s recent iCloud announcements also point to even more consumer acceptance and awareness of the cloud. So the idea of backup and file storage in the cloud isn’t new—everyone reading this article is probably already using at least one of the cloud-based services I mentioned.