Protecting and Recovering Data in the Cloud Era, 2022–23

Data has become how businesses operate, compete, and thrive in this new data economy. Therefore, organizational data must be protected under all conditions, no matter where it resides— on-premises, in remote locations, in the various types of clouds, in cloud native infrastructure, or as part of a multicloud environment. It used to be that only critical data needed backup protection, but with today’s reliance on data, all data now needs to be protected to some degree. Shifting business requirements have required legacy backup software to change from merely making duplicated copies of data and doing media management to much, much more. Modern backups now overlap many data protection solutions, as they are geared toward protecting data anywhere it lives. If data is lost, these backups aim to recover it quickly and with good operational continuity. The leading backup vendors have demonstrated a clear understanding of what their solutions must offer customers. Most of the vendors analyzed in this report have the major backup features checked off to one degree or another. The difference in their offerings is in the details of how they have carried out those features, with varying degrees of simplicity, flexibility, and offering completeness. Some vendor offerings also include functionality that goes beyond backup into the broader data management area, which might be the deciding factor behind a few user purchases.