Looming questions for managing your data protection services
Posted by: Linda Tucci
Should midmarket companies consider using outside providers to manage their data protection services? For companies with smaller staffs and budgets, using a third-party provider to manage their data protection services can pay off, as long as certain issues, including security, are addressed up front.
For a story I did this week on a Houston-based nonprofit moving from tape backup to an online data backup and recovery service, I asked analysts to give me some sense of the enthusiasm out there on the degree to which companies are using outside providers to manage their data protection services.
The resistance to using outside providers for data protection services has fallen from near 70% a few years ago to 32% now, according to Gartner analyst Adam Couture.
Burton Group analyst Gene Ruth told me there are a number of “enterprise-ready” online backup and data protection service providers out there who are growing and are particularly suited for midmarket or small companies that may not have the staff or capital to handle automated data backup and storage and disaster recovery facilities. They include the IBM/Arsenal Digital solution used by the Houston nonprofit profiled in my story, as well as EVault, AmeriVault and EMC’s Mozy service.
As with any newish technology, however, there are lots of questions that don’t yet have standard answers. Let’s go through some of them. Continued »


