Data Protection Fears Result in Organizations Avoiding Virtual Machines for Mission-Critical Applications
Fears around data protection are slowing mass adoption of virtualization, according to a recent survey of 500 chief information officers. The survey showed that 44 percent of CIOs say they are avoiding using virtualization for certain mission-critical workloads due to concerns about backup and recovery.
These are some of the findings from the “VMware Data Protection Report 2010,” a report released today by Veeam Software, a provider of VMware data protection, disaster recovery and VMware management solutions for virtual datacenter environments.
The findings in the report show that of those surveyed, currently only two-thirds (68 percent) back up their virtual estates. Additionally, 61 percent of enterprises using physical-based tools for backup and recovery will now change their approach specifically because of virtualization. The report notes that Fifty-nine percent of businesses are now planning to deploy a virtualization-specific solution to back up virtual servers.
“Despite the prolific adoption of virtualization, when it comes to mission-critical workloads, it’s clear that organizations have concerns around data protection,” said Ratmir Timashev, Veeam President and CEO. “This isn’t surprising. Sixty-three percent of respondents admitted that they use a single product to back up both their physical and virtual servers. With this approach, they are still treating virtual machines as physical servers, and thereby limiting their ability to use virtualization to its full potential. Consequently, enterprises do not have the optimum level of protection needed for virtualized mission-critical workloads.
Survey respondents are recognizing this problem. When asked to identify the shortcomings of using traditional, physical-based backup tools in a virtual environment, more than half (51 percent) stated it was too expensive. Beyond this, 40 percent cited slow recovery, while 40 percent also identified the need to install a software agent. In fact, with traditional backup tools, IT departments stated that performing a standard recovery process (such as a file-level restore) is made more complex. Most (66 percent) either recover the entire virtual machine first and restore the individual file, or keep two backups, one at a system level and another at a file level.
IT directors are also beginning to reevaluate their approach to data protection. Sixty-one percent of those using physical-based tools said that they are changing their approach specifically because of virtualization, while 59 percent are planning to deploy a virtualization-specific solution to deal with their virtual servers. The reasons given for taking this route are clear: faster recovery (63 percent), faster backup (56 percent) and lower cost (54 percent).
“The message is simple: without the correct strategy, organizations will never unlock virtualization’s full potential,” said Timashev. “What is needed is a change of perspective. Businesses must stop looking at a virtual environment as simply an extension of physical infrastructure. Instead, they must realize that virtualization can bring a host of extra benefits to data protection, but only if they change their approach to management. If they can do this, then organizations will be able to reap the benefits of virtualization. If not, then businesses must resign themselves to the fact that they will never be able to fully trust or exploit their virtual infrastructure.”
The report was generated after surveying 500 CIOs from organizations across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and France that employ more than 1,000 people.
The full report is available for download (short registration required) at http://www.veeam.com/survey
