Backup Lifecycle Management Survey Highlights Industry Concerns, Inconsistent Policies

A recent survey of enterprise users revealed that IT professionals are finding shortcomings in conventional Information Lifecycle Management solutions. While many companies do an adequate job of managing primary data, the study reveals that ILM solutions largely ignore backups and archival data, and fail to address policies for deleting data at the end of its useful lifecycle. This missing piece of data lifecycle management remains an unmet need for most. The survey further indicates that many companies have not yet recognized the economic value of extending data lifecycle management functionality into the backup arena.

Key findings include:

  • Only 50% of respondents say that backups of remote office/branch office (ROBO) data are taken offsite on a regular schedule

  • Less than half currently adhere to a policy to delete primary data of a certain age

  • 37% say their data management and archiving policies have been affected by Sarbanes-Oxley; 13% are affected by HIPAA

  • 60% agreed that encryption of backups in-flight is an urgent requirement for their business today; 57% say encryption of backups at-rest is an urgent requirement

  • All respondents say they are willing to consider archiving to disk in the future
Remote Office/Branch Office Data Management
Responses were split on whether ROBO backups were regularly taken offsite, with only half expressing confidence that this is occurring. Almost 40% say that this is not occurring with any regularity, if at all, and the remainder was unsure.

Policies for managing ROBO data vary, yet a large majority of respondents reveal that ROBO data is considered critical. 57% say that access to ROBO data is often required for day-to-day operations up to six months after it is created, and 37% say that ROBO data is required for day-to-day operations for one year.

Of those who retain ROBO data, 27% retain backups for seven years as a matter of policy, 23% between three and seven years, and 30% between one and three years. Only 20% retain backups of ROBO data for less than one year.

Destroying Data at the End of its Lifecycle
Around 47% of respondents reported that they strictly adhere to a policy to delete primary data of a certain age. Of these, around two-thirds do so mainly to control and manage disk storage costs, while 28% report that this practice depends on the nature of the data or meeting a business-specific goal.

Yet policy-based management of data is not limited to primary storage. While 76% agree that coordinating primary and secondary data during deletion is important, 73% say their current method of lifecycle management does not coordinate the deletion of primary and secondary data. Less than 4% report that their current solution provides a digital certificate of destruction.

Effective Tiered Management Key
Effective management of backup and archival data files has now become critical to the viability of a business, in terms of the user’s ability to ensure fast and simple recovery, to control the cost of enterprise storage, or to comply with government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and SEC Rule 17a-4.

Maximizing IT resources is impossible without recognizing and managing the unique lifecycle of backup data effectively, because in today’s competitive business environment, simply treating all backup as equal is an expensive solution. The challenges of archiving backup data should meet several objectives beyond the ability to consolidate data in order to eliminate the cost of acquiring and maintaining separate archival storage hardware at each location.

First, archiving stale files – those that are unlikely to ever be needed for restoration but that must still be protected – can free up storage capacity, as well as reduce the cost of inactive files online. Second, archive requests must be consolidated from multiple locations into a single multi-tiered archive, assigning data to the most cost-effective storage tier based on policy-based criteria like applications and recovery time objectives.

Third, an effective archiving solution must be able to shrink the size of the archive by monitoring and eliminating duplicate backup files, resulting in a smaller archive with improved data recovery by staging data on the appropriate storage tier. Finally, compliant data destruction, including any stored backup copies, must also be ensured.

For additional information on Backup Lifecycle Management visit www.asigra.com.
Survey completed: February 2006