2016 Veeam Availability Report: How to close a widening ...€¦ · 2016 Veeam Availability Report:...

2016 Veeam Availability Report:How to close a widening Availability GapEnterprises must deliver on users’ demands for 24/7/365 access to data/applications or risk financial implications

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2016 Veeam Availability Report | 1

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ContentsExecutive summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Research aims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Executive summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Modernizing the data center for the Always-On Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What does it mean to be an Always-On Enterprise? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Improving the data center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

The Availability Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Availability Gap is still present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Improving testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Speed of disaster recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

RTOs and RPOs: Reality falls short of the ideal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

The cost of downtime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Downtime is increasing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

The impact of downtime. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Next steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Appendix 1: Country analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Appendix 2: Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Executive Summary

vee.am/availability16


2016 Veeam Availability Report | 3

While business transformation is driven by a new breed of user — one that desires a seamless, connected experience — the ability for modern enterprises to deliver non-stop services and continually innovate has never been more urgent. However, are today’s businesses delivering what users need?

Veeam®, an advocate of the Always-On Enterprise™ — a business that functions 24 hours a day all across the world — commissioned its fifth annual Availability Report to ask this very question.

How does one deliver the Always-On Enterprise? In simple terms, one must eradicate downtime. Veeam is aware that downtime can mean different things to different people and that the impact of downtime can vary from organization to organization.

If unplanned downtime does occur, then organizations should have systems in place that reduce or entirely eliminate their Availability Gap — the gap between what users demand (i.e., 24/7 access to critical applications and data) and what IT departments can deliver.

This study examines several areas in order to help educate decision makers, so they can turn their organization into an Always-On Enterprise:

• What does it mean to IT decision makers to work in an Always-On Enterprise?

• What work is carried out in the data centers of respondent IT decision makers’ organizations?

• Do organizations have an Availability Gap, and if so, what is stopping them from reducing it?

• How reliable are organizations’ current backup processes, and how will they develop in the future?

• The cost: What is the result of downtime? Is the impact purely financial, or are there more costs of which organizations should be aware?

To explore these areas, Veeam commissioned 1,140 interviews with senior decision makers in IT departments (referred to as ITDMs or respondents) in 24 countries, which are compared where appropriate to 630 interviews with ITDMs conducted in 2014.

Research aims

2016 Veeam Availability Report | 4 vee.am/availability16


Executive summaryVeeam’s research discovered that 84% of ITDMs interviewed — 2% higher than in 2014 — agree that their organization have an Availability Gap. To combat this, most organizations are investing in their data centers, with two-thirds (68%) doing so specifically to enable 24/7 Always-On operations. Enterprises appreciate the challenges facing them and are taking measures, yet they seem to be falling short.

Savings on operational costs (65%) is also likely to be a driver for data center improvements. However, about 50% of respondents reported the cost of new technology as a barrier to achieving desired data center capabilities. This shows that IT departments’ budgets are under pressure, which may limit their ability to adopt the new technology they need to improve Availability.

What is alarming is that despite obvious investments, the average number of unplanned downtime events reported has increased in the last year (from 13 events in 2014 to 15 events in 2015).

The average length of each downtime event has also increased (from less than 1.5 hours to almost 2 hours for mission-critical applications).

Because of these increases, the average annual cost of downtime to organizations can be up to $16 million. That is $6 million higher than recorded in the 2014 study. In addition, application downtime can have an impact that goes beyond financial loss: The majority of respondents report that confidence in the organization (68%) and brand (62%) can also suffer.

What this study clearly illustrates is that despite investments and senior ITDMs understanding that Availability is of paramount importance, the reality is that service levels are falling well short of their goals. Users demand a crisp, seamless experience, but they have to deal with services that are below par instead. This costs enterprises millions of dollars in lost revenue, productivity and brand reputation.

Modernizing the data center for the Always-On Enterprise



What does it mean to be an Always-On Enterprise?ITDMs are most likely to report that end users ask them to provide support for real-time interactions (63%) and 24/7 global access (59%). This shows that it is not only a case of providing the devices to users that allow access with minimal support, but also one of enabling the users to maximize their use of the organization’s infrastructure.

ITDMs report between an average of three and four demands from end users to keep downtime to a minimum. This shows that reducing downtime could improve application Availability in several ways. This expectation and awareness from end users requires a proactive response from ITDMs’ organizations in order to meet end-user needs by reducing downtime.

Figure 1: “What does ‘Always-On Business’ mean for you – that is, which of the following demands from end users are key drivers for minimizing application downtime and guaranteeing access to data?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 2: “Which of these capabilities would you like to have in your organization’s data center, but cannot achieve now for some reason?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Improving the data centerNearly all (94%) ITDMs report there is at least one additional capability that they would like to have in their organizations’ data centers.

High-speed recovery (59%) and data loss avoidance (57%) are the two additional capabilities that ITDMs are most likely to want. This shows that ITDMs are looking at minimizing the time and data lost in during downtime and that data center improvements are a key element to achieving this.

But what, if anything, is stopping them from making these improvements?

There are no key drivers forminimizing application downtime

and guaranteeing access to data

Zero-tolerance attitude from usersfor downtime and data loss

Rapidly growing volumes of data

24/7 access to applicationsbecause of employees workingoutside regular working hours

Increasing level of automationfor decision making and transactions

Increasing adoption of mobile devices

24/7 access to applications becauseof globalization across time zones

More frequent, real time interactionsbetween customers, partners,

suppliers and employees

1

6363

59

55

51

51

40

37

None of the above

Complete visibility; i.e.,proactive monitoring and alerting

Using backup datafor a production-like environment

to test software and patches

High-speed recovery; i.e.,<15min. recovery for any

application/server/VM6359

57

41

33

30

6

Data loss avoidance; i.e.,<15min. of data loss



The cost of new technology is most likely to prevent ITDMs’ organizations from adding these capabilities to their data centers. This demonstrates that IT departments are under pressure to minimize expenditures.

Figure 3: “What barriers are preventing your organization from achieving the desired data center capabilities?” Asked to all whose organization has at least one capability that they would like to have in their data center (1,067 respondents)

Figure 4: “What barriers are preventing your organization from achieving the desired data center capabilities?” Asked to all whose organization has at least one capability that they would like to have in their data center (2015=586 respondents, 2014=698 respondents), showing top two barriers only

Figure 4

Figure 3

Cost of the newtechnology

Complex to deploy/lack of expertise

Current product does not providethese capabilities

Human resourcesconstraints

Not relevantfor our business

36

2731

33

38

26

19

5 6 6

117

5558

5452

49

Data loss avoidance

27

54 53

25

Complete visibility

47 47

29

39

High-speed recovery

55 55

31

35

Using backup data to test software/patches

33

53

46

40 40

52 53

30

2015 Cost of the new technology

2014 Cost of the new technology

2015 Complex to deploy/lack of expertise

2014 Complex to deploy/lack of expertise

Additionally, cost is increasingly likely to be the main barrier relative to other issues: In 2014, ITDMs were almost as likely to report complex deployment or lack of expertise as barriers to some capabilities, but in 2015, the cost of new technology is the only barrier reported by more than one third of ITDMs.



Despite the increase in reporting cost as an issue, only four ITDMs report that there is no current investment or planned investment for their data center in the next two years. This shows the pressure IT departments are under to keep their data center up-to-date. This pressure may be a challenge for a number of IT departments that also have to consider cost.

Fifty-three percent of respondents report that their organizations are currently investing in data protection and disaster recovery, making it one of the areas on which organizations are most likely focusing.

This shows that even though data protection is likely to be one of the key areas where organizations are directing investments, the need to reduce costs may limit the amount invested. In turn, this could negatively affect the impact that updates have on improving Availability.

Driving the need for this investment to modernize the data center is the need to enable 24/7 Always-On operations in order to cater to increasing user demands (reported by 71%, from 68% in 2014).

However, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents also report that the investment in modernization is to lower operational costs for IT. This supports the view that the IT department is under pressure to not only improve Availability and minimize downtime, but also to lower costs while doing so. Furthermore, the same number of ITDMs report strengthening security and control (65%) as a driver for data center modernization. This shows that security is a concern for the majority of ITDMs and is another area of focus that could distract from the goal of becoming an Always-On Enterprise. Being Always-On requires a flexible and adaptable infrastructure, but many see these two elements as potentially dangerous when compared to more security-conscious and rigid infrastructures.

Cost and security remain the key challenges that the Always-On Enterprise is likely to encounter. In addition, being an Always-On Enterprise involves satisfying a variety of demands from end users.

Figure 5: “What areas of the modern data center is your organization either currently investing or planning to invest in?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents), only showing top for current or planned investment areas

Figure 6: “What are the main business drivers for your organization’s data center modernization?” Asked to all whose organization is either currently investing in, or planning to invest in at least one technology, comparable data (760 respondents in 2014, 630 respondents in 2015)

Figure 5

Figure 6Data protection and disaster recovery

Storage upgrades

OS upgrades

Server virtualization

Currently investing in

Planning to invest in soon/within 2 years

54 39

3853

4547

Supplying new applications and services more quickly

Strengthening security and control

Lower operational costs for IT

Enable 24/7 Always-On business operations

2014 2015

The Availability Gap



The Availability Gap is still presentMore than 8 out of 10 (84%) ITDMs agree that their organizations’ data centers have an Availability Gap and cannot meet the users’ needs of an agile, Always-On Enterprise as a result.

Almost all ITDMs also report their organization has increased their requirements to minimize application downtime (96%) or guarantee access to data (94%) to some extent over the past two years.

Therefore, most ITDMs recognize that their data centers need to improve when it comes to Availability and recovery. But how?

Improving testingData protection and disaster recovery are key areas for improving Availability. Having a range of solutions allows for more flexibility, and this flexibility will increase the chances that organizations will have the correct tools to deal with whatever situation results in downtime.

ITDMs are most likely to report that their organizations uses off-site backups for data protection (66%). The expectation is that this will still be the case in 2 years (albeit falling slightly to 63%). However, local backup use is expected to fall more significantly in the same timeframe: Currently, 63% of respondents say their organizations use local backups, but this number is expected to fall to 51% in 2 years.

This is in contrast to the other, more sophisticated methods of data protection, the use of which is expected to increase over the next two years. Off-site replication use is expected to increase from 36% to 43%, and secondary storage snapshot use is expected to increase to 36% on site (from 29%) and 28% off site (from 18%).

This demonstrates that organizations are reducing use of older services and increasing their adoption of new services. However, the rate of adoption is slow, and the majority of respondents expect to continue using the older services in the near future.

This is further supported by the fact that only 4 out of 10 (39%) report that their organizations use cloud for replication and high Availability.

Figure 7: “What data protection and disaster recovery methods does your organization currently use/plan to use in two years?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure 7

Storage snapshots (primary storage)

Local replication

Local backup

Currently use Expect to use in two years

Storage snapshots to secondary on-site storage



This shows that the majority only use cloud for backups or not for data protection at all.

However, it is not just the technology that could improve: The processes that organizations have in place to support this technology also likely require improvement.

Nearly half (45%) of respondents report their organizations test data on a monthly basis, and some test even less frequently. Long gaps between testing increase the chance of issues when data needs to be recovered — at which point, it may be too late. Of those that do test their backups, only 26% test more than 5% of their backups. This shows that backup testing is unlikely to be comprehensive: either it does not take place often enough or only a small proportion is tested.

Patches and upgrades are also an issue for a significant number of ITDMs.

Almost half (48%) of ITDMs report that their organizations experience downtime regularly due to unforeseen problems caused by patches and upgrades that are applied to applications. This could result in a situation in which a patch is released to resolve a downtime event, but causes further issues that extend the downtime instead.

ITDMs’ organizations are also not always maximizing the use of their backups. Using backups for preproduction testing of patches leverages backups that are otherwise dormant.

Figure 8: “How is your organization using cloud as a part of your data protection strategy?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure 9: “How often does your organization test its back-ups for recoverability to a production state?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure 10: “When your organization performs patches or upgrades to applications, do you experience more downtime than expected due to unforeseen problems?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure 8

Figure 9

Figure 1016

3927

14

4

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Quarterly

Once a year

Never

10

38

15

26

12

Yes – the majority of time

Yes – some of the time

Yes – half of the time

Yes – less than half of the time

No – never

Not using cloud for data protection

Using cloud for replication and high Availability

Using cloud to store backups for archival

686868



Only 4 out of 10 (41%) ITDMs report that their organizations use backups for testing, although an additional 40% say they would like to do this.

Figure 2 shows that a third of respondents are unable to add this testing capability to their data center, which explains why there is this near-equal split between those who have this capability and those who do not but would like to. This demonstrates that the majority of ITDMs are aware that backups can have a day-to-day use for increasing Availability, even though only a minority are able to realize this use.

This supports the fact that the majority of organizations need to carry out more intelligent testing. A better technological solution alone will not necessarily improve Availability — it needs to be used correctly to maximize its impact.

Figure 11: “Does your organization use your backups for preproduction testing of new software and patches?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure 11

41

40

13

6

Yes

No, but we would like to

No, we don’t need it

No, we have not consider this



Speed of disaster recoveryComparing the 2014 disaster recovery speed results to the like-for-like 2015 results shows recoverability speed has improved. In 2014, ITDMs reported that mission-critical applications took just under 4 hours to recover, on average. In 2015, this average time decreased to just under 3 hours.

Figure 12: “How fast can your organization recover its mission-critical and non-mission-critical applications?” Asked to all, comparable data (760 respondents in 2014, 630 respondents in 2015)

The fact that recovery time has improved for mission-critical applications shows that organizations are improving their application Availability levels, despite the fact that a large number do not see it as an important factor when engaging a service provider. However, this improvement of recovery times should be treated with caution. Figure 10 shows that patching can cause unforeseen problems. This means that there is potential for organizations to patch application issues in order to minimize downtime, but by doing so, they can also create further issues that result in downtime in the future.

There is also one critical point that organizations should consider: On average, almost half (47.3%) of ITDMs’ organizations’ current workloads are mission-critical, and this is expected to increase to just over half (52.4%) in the next two years. This demonstrates that having high Availability will become increasingly important as a greater proportion of the workload becomes critical to organizational functions. This shows that Availability is becoming even more important over time. Despite the fact that recovery time has decreased (Figure 12), the extent of this improvement may not be enough to keep up with the increasing proportion of applications that are mission-critical.

Figure 12

Time to recover for mission-critical applications (in hours)

Time to recover for non-mission-critical applications (in hours)

Time to recover for mission-critical applications (in hours)

Time to recover for non-mission-critical applications (in hours)

10,1

2,8

10,4

3,9

2014

2015



RTO and RPO – reality falls short of the idealDespite these signs of improvement, ITDMs report that the Availability gap should ideally be much smaller for their organizations’ mission-critical applications than it currently is. According to ITDMs, the recovery time objective (RTO) for mission-critical applications in their organization is 3 hours, on average. However, in order to close the Availability Gap, the RTO should be reduced to just 1.6 hours. Similarly, the current recovery point objective (RPO) is 4.2 hours, but should ideally be 2.9 hours.

Figure 13: Analysis of average RTO/RPO for mission-critical applications vs. RTO/RPO required to close Availability Gap (in hours), asked to all (1,140 respondents)

This demonstrates that organizations are still a long way from their ideal application recovery time and recovery point objectives. With the importance of Availability likely to increase, this could cause serious issues in the event of downtime in the future, even if it is not causing serious issues already.

Although ITDMs do report improvements in Availability, most organizations are not operating as effectively as they could be. The result is that downtime is still significantly limiting Availability in organizations, threatening their day-to-day functions and their ability to become an Always-On Enterprise.

Figure 13

Required RPO to close Availability gap

RPO for mission-critical applications

Required RTO to close Availability Gap

RTO for mission-critical applications 3,0

4,2

2,9

The cost of downtime



Downtime is increasingITDMs report that their organizations experience an average of 15 unplanned downtime events per year. This compares to the average of 13 events reported by ITDMs in 2014.

In addition, the average length of downtime events has also increased. ITDMs report that unplanned mission-critical application downtime length increased from 1.4 hours to 1.9 hours, and that non-mission-critical application downtime length increased from 4 hours to 5.8 hours.

The increases in incidence and length have also had a significant impact to the average cost of downtime.

The impact of downtimeBecause of these increases, the estimated average annual cost of downtime to ITDMs’ organizations can be up to $16 million. This is an increase of $6 million compared to the 2014 average.

This demonstrates that there can be huge financial costs to organizations that experience unplanned downtime. With ITDMs also reporting that the pressure to reduce costs limits their ability to upgrade their organizations’ data centers, it shows that cutting costs can be counterproductive. Reduced investments in key data protection processes can lead to larger costs down the line.

However, the cost of downtime can go beyond the bottom line. Only 2% of ITDMs report that they would not expect any non-financial impact to their organization because of downtime.

Figure 14: “On average, approximately how long does each individual instance of unplanned downtime (i.e., caused by IT failures, external forces or other factors) of your organization’s applications last?” Asked to all, comparable data (760 respondents in 2014, 630 respondents in 2015)

Figure 14

Figure 15

Figure 15: “What other impacts could result in your organization from application downtime or data loss?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Length of unplanned downtimeof mission-critical applications (in hours)

Length of unplanned downtime of non-mission-critical applications (in hours)

1,4

4,0

1,9

5,8

2014 2015

Revocation of licenses/accreditations

Subject to legal action

Reduced stock price

No other impacts expected

Diversion of resources from long-term or critical projects

Damage to brand integrity

68

2

20

26

31

68

2

20

26

31

68

2

20

26

31



More than 6 out of 10 ITDMs report that downtime can result in the loss of customer confidence (68%) and damage to their organizations’ brands (62%).

This shows that downtime can have a clear and lasting impact to organizations that goes beyond the data center or even the wider financial implications. Furthermore, around half of respondents (51%) report that downtime can result in the loss of employee confidence. This demonstrates that the negative impact is felt internally with potentially wider implications for morale and performance.

Almost a third (31%) also report that downtime might result in a diversion of resources from long-term and business critical projects, which again has wider implications for the long-term strategy of the organization. This can also have an impact upon their ability to save money, which illustrates once more that the twin IT department targets of minimizing downtime while reducing operational costs can be counterproductive.

ConclusionTo be truly Always-On, organizations need a great deal of effort and investment to deliver true Availability. It is more than simply providing employees with devices that enable email access while on the move. It is about guaranteeing access to all resources, whether the resources are necessary for action requests or for nothing more than data retrieval, whether this access is needed for an employee locally or for an employee on the other side of the world.

Data centers are likely in the process of extensive updates, if not now, then in the near future. Enabling 24/7 access for the Always-On Enterprise is most likely to be the driver of these updates.

However, IT departments are under pressure to keep operational costs to a minimum, threatening their ability to support the wider business. At the same time, IT departments are also asked to strengthen security. Is it realistic that these actions can be carried out while maintaining an Always-On Enterprise?

Cloud is currently under-used by the majority of respondents. ITDMs report that their organizations are either not using it at all, or if they do use it, it is simply a tool to back up files for restoring and archiving, rather than increasing Availability. The emphasis on cloud is primarily to recover data if something goes wrong, instead of using it to use backups more creatively in order to increase Availability.

Organizations must stop the increase in number and length of unplanned downtime incidents if they wish to avoid the risk of suffering a significant setback. With the increasing proportion of mission-critical workloads, the risks can only increase as it becomes more likely that downtime will have an impact upon these critical workloads.

This impact will be felt both financially and at the brand level of organizations and beyond. Some will be tempted to minimize the adoption of Always-On practices in order to minimize costs or to maintain rigid security. However, this will prevent such an organization from achieving high Availability and ultimately competitiveness.

Being an Always-On Enterprise allows organizations to compete in the modern economy. For enterprises to continue to compete, attract the best talent and succeed, they must embrace innovative Availability solutions. If they do not, the consequences could be significant.



Next stepsToday’s users — whether they are employees at the workplace or consumers at home — are immersed in technology and have zero patience for unavailable applications and data, so delivering a seamless experience is pivotal. Business leaders need to challenge traditional thinking and really ask themselves whether their operations are truly up to this task. If the answer is no, then they need to be prepared to feel a user backlash.

If they are not already aware, ITDMs should find out what their end users need from an Always-On Enterprise and consider how they can meet these demands.

Organizations need to invest in their data center and continue planning further investment. However, ITDMs should always keep the need to balance Availability, cost and security in mind.

Most organizations have an Availability Gap and are not achieving their SLAs for the RTOs and RPOs required to close this gap. ITDMs should establish the SLAs they need to deliver the services users require and work towards reaching them. This cannot be achieved overnight, but this journey must be started soon if Availability is to be improved and the impact of downtime minimized in the near future.

An enterprise’s journey on this path must not just sit within the IT department: The C-suite needs to be fully engaged because the cost of doing nothing can be millions of dollars. Executives must understand the risks to both the bottom line and the brand of not being an Always-On Enterprise and become active sponsors of the drive to deliver the Always-On experience users demand.

With this support, IT departments have to challenge legacy and status quo attitudes within the data center. Traditional backup and recovery solutions will only take one so far. They are not appropriate for the evolving digital business and are definitely not able to provide the 24/7/365 levels of immediacy reported in this study.

Simply put, enterprises need to ask themselves one question: Do I want to prosper in this new, digital economy or fade away into extinction?

Appendix 1: Country analysis



Costs and securityThe challenge of reducing costs is more acute for ITDMs in some countries than those in others. Some are most likely to report that a main driver for modernizing their data center is to lower IT operational costs.

ITDMs from Italy, UK, Singapore and Brazil are most likely to say that they are trying to lower IT operational costs in order to modernize their data center. It is in these countries that the pressure to reduce costs is likely to drive updates rather than the need to improve the Availability of the data center.

Similarly, the need to improve security is more likely to drive data center updates in some countries than it is in others.

Italy and the US are the countries where ITDMs are most likely to say that they are trying to strengthen security in order to modernize their data center. This shows how the focus of organizations varies from region to region. This is in addition to the fact that the exact experiences of ITDMs will vary due to different combinations of user requirements.

Saud

i Ara

biaUS

China

Japa

n

Spain

Arge

ntina

UAE

Braz

il

Sing

apor

eUKIta

ly

Nethe

rland

s

Malay

sia

Nordics

German

y

Fran

ce

Sout

h Af

rica

Switz

erland

Poland

Russ

ia

Hong Ko

ng

Austra

lia/N

ew Z

ealand

Czec

h Re

public

Mexico

Figure 16,17: Percentage who report that lowering operational costs for IT is one of the main business drivers for their organization’s data center modernization; asked to all whose organization is either currently investing in or planning to invest in at least one modernization technology (1,139 respondents), by country

Percentage who report that strengthening security is one of the main business drivers for their organization’s data center modernization; asked to all whose organization is either currently investing in or planning to invest in at least one modernization technology (1,139 respondents), by country

Figure 16-17



Use of backupsGermany, Italy and Brazil are most likely to use local backups, both currently and in two years’ time, according to ITDMs.

This shows that these countries are somewhat behind the curve when it comes to disaster recovery and data protection.

Italy, Germany, Brazil and Spain are also among the top five countries in which ITDMs are most likely to report a higher average regularity of testing their backups.

This shows that these organizations keep track of their backups’ performance and reliability. However, in light of the fact that these are the same countries that are most likely to continue using local backups in the future, it also shows that a lot of time is likely invested in testing these less sophisticated backup services. This will stretch costs — which we have seen are under pressure — when they would have been better concentrated on upgrading to newer backup solutions.

ITDMs from most countries are more likely to agree that they have an Availability Gap than they are to disagree. However, ITDMs from Switzerland are most likely to strongly disagree that they have an Availability Gap in their organization (37%). The data further reflects this relatively positive statistic, because ITDMs in Switzerland are consistently most likely to report a more optimistic view of their organizations’ performance.

ITDMs in Switzerland are most likely to report that they are not prevented from adding any capabilities to their data center (33%). They also report among the lowest average for backups that fail to recover during testing (8%, compared to the overall average

Figure 18: Analysis of use of local backup and off-site backup by key countries

Figure 19: Average number of days per month recoverability tests are ran in respondents’ organizations, showing top five countries

Figure 18

Figure 19

Spain

Netherlands

Brazil

Germany

Italy

Germany

Italy

Spain

Brazil

Brazil

Local backup

Spain

Italy

Germany

Curr

ently

use

Expe

ct to

use

in tw

o ye

ars

87

83

63

67

83

57

71

70

73

67

57

47

73

60

63

60



of 18%). Additionally, they are most likely to say that patches and updates never cause further issues (23%). This is despite the fact that they are most likely to virtualize a higher percentage of their workloads (an average of 66% compared to the overall average of 45%).

This relatively high performance is most likely driven by the fact that ITDMs in Switzerland report the highest average of workload that is mission-critical — 72% (expected to increase to 86% in 2 years), compared to the overall average of 47% (which is expected to increase to 52%). Organizations with a high level of workloads that are mission-critical understand how crucial it is maintain high Availability.

However, half of ITDMs in Switzerland do still agree that they have an Availability Gap, so this shows that even in this relatively high-performing region, there is still significant room for improvement.

Cost of downtimeITDMs in South Africa report the highest maximum average loss per year due to downtime, at $34 million. ITDMs from Germany follow at $30.8 million.

Switzerland is best-placed with an average maximum loss of just $1.1 million. This once again demonstrates Switzerland’s relatively better performance compared to other countries in the study. However, the potential loss is huge for almost every country, and the loss is still significant for countries that perform slightly better when it comes to Availability.

Looking at non-financial impacts, ITDMs in Switzerland report a higher average number of impacts (four) that could result from downtime or data loss. This is slightly higher than the number reported by ITDMs from other countries (which is either three or two, on average).

ITDMs in Switzerland, despite their generally better-than-average performance noted elsewhere, are more aware of the potential of non-financial damage that downtime can do to an organization. This shows that organizations in other countries could be underestimating the non-financial impacts of downtime.

Figure 20: Average annual maximum cost of downtime, calculated from average hourly cost of downtime, average length of downtime, and average number of downtime events in a year; asked to all (1,140 respondents), by country

Figure 20

Switzerland

Nordics

Czech Republic

UAE

Malaysia

China

Saudi Arabia

Italy

Russia

Netherlands

Spain

Australia/New Zealand

US

Poland

Mexico

France

UK

Singapore

Brazil

Hong Kong

Argentina

Japan

Germany

South Africa

$1,133,301

$1,905,704

$4,385,504

$5,578,300

$5,815,409

$5,981,254

$8,286,913

$8,646,435

$8,697,909

$9,010,336

$9,173,637

$13,437,944

$13,648,660

$14,124,196

$15,615,762

$17,001,282

$17,832,841

$17,891,217

$18,615,138

$19,292,372

$23,905,647

$28,228,760

$30,840,568

$34,018,380

Appendix 2: Methodology



Research methodologyVeeam commissioned independent technology market research specialist Vanson Bourne to undertake the research upon which this report is based. During late 2015, 1,140 interviews were conducted with senior decision makers in the IT departments (referred to as ITDMs or respondents) of businesses with at least 1,000 employees, split as follows:

Interviews were carried out in 24 countries:

• US - 150 interviews

• China - 120 interviews

• France, Germany, UK - 100 interviews each

• Argentina, Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Nordics, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, UAE – 30 interviews each

Interviews were conducted online using a rigorous multi-level screening process to ensure that only suitable candidates were given the opportunity to participate. Unless otherwise indicated, results discussed are based on the total sample.

By comparison, in mid-2014, 760 ITDMs in 10 countries were interviewed for a similar questionnaire:

• US - 200 interviews

• France, Germany, UK - 100 interviews each

• Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, Italy - 50 interviews each

• Singapore, Switzerland - 30 interviews each

When compared with the 2014 results, the 2015 results usually comprise of the 630 ITDMs from the corresponding countries in 2014: US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Switzerland.

Figure D1: ”How many employees work in your organization?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure D2: ”In which sector would your organization be categorized?” Asked to all (1,140 respondents)

Figure D2

Figure D1

Other commercial sector

Private education/higher education

Private healthcare

Energy/utilities/oil & gas

Retail, distribution and transport

Financial services

Manufacturing

Business & professional services

More than 5,000 employees

3,001 - 5,000 employees

1,001 - 3,000 employees



About VeeamAbout Veeam Software: Veeam® recognizes the new challenges companies across the globe face in enabling the Always-On Enterprise™, a business that must operate 24/7/365. To address this, Veeam has pioneered a new market of Availability for the Always-On Enterprise™ by helping organizations meet recovery time and point objectives (RTPO™) of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data, through a fundamentally new kind of solution that delivers high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance, verified protection, leveraged data and complete visibility. Veeam Availability Suite™, which includes Veeam Backup & Replication™, leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies that enable the modern data center to help organizations save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs, while always supporting the current and future business goals of Veeam customers.

Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 37,000 ProPartners and more than 183,000 customers worldwide. Veeam’s global headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland, and the company has offices throughout the world. To learn more, visit www.veeam.com.

About Vanson Bourne: Vanson Bourne is an independent specialist in market research for the technology sector. Our reputation for robust and credible research-based analysis is founded upon rigorous research principles and our ability to seek the opinions of senior decision makers across technical and business functions, in all business sectors and all major markets. For more information, visit www.vansonbourne.com.

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