Data&Storage ASEAN Micro Survey. Trends in Data Protection in ASEAN. Commissioned by arcserve

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1 Data&Storage ASEAN Micro Survey Trends in Data Protection in ASEAN Commissioned by arcserve

2 DSA Micro Survey on Trends in Data Protection in ASEAN Commissioned by arcserve Data & Storage Asean (DSA) conducted an online survey completed by 65 IT professionals from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. This survey provides insight into the state of the Data Protection landscape in ASEAN. Most notably the results point to IT departments in Southeast ASEAN continuing to use legacy methods for data protection, and the snail pace adoption of newer technologies despite awareness of RPO and RTO benefits. On a positive note, there are indications that the pace of adoption to new technologies in this space is increasing. Contents Survey Summary... 3 What is your primary backup target?... 4 Which Backup Software are you using?... 5 Do You Use Different Products For Physical and Virtual Machine Backup?... 6 Would you consider using software from more than one vendor for your data requirements?... 7 Do you have different RPO and RTO for different types of Data?... 8 How Long Do You Archive Your Backups?... 9 How Many Days Any Point In Time Would Suit Your Recovery Needs? Are you planning to change your data protection products? Notes on Survey Methodology... 12

3 Survey Summary DSA conducted a survey commissioned by arcserve to explore trends in the Data Protection Landscape across ASEAN. In conducting the survey we looked into five key areas: 1 Extent of legacy data protection technology currently in use 2 IT department s appetite for change 3 Complexity of data protection strategy 4 The market share of data protection software vendors 5 Key functional areas including retention policy, RPO, RTO and any point in time recovery Our aim with this survey is to assist IT managers, backup administrators understand how their counterparts around the region are managing their data protection strategies. Also by identifying specific trends, it is hoped that IT managers and backup administrators will gain insight into technologies they may want to consider as part of their data protection strategy. On the other end of the technology ecosystem, we also hope to inform and guide Data Protection vendors and integrators in terms of developing the right approaches towards engaging their customers, including but not limited to educating and guiding the ASEAN IT community in areas that will help them develop their data protection strategies. The results point to ASEAN being slower than average to leverage some of the newer data protection technologies and practices that are being adopted elsewhere across the globe. They also show a definite requirement for some of the older backup technologies to be supported into the future. The survey did reveal that change is underway, and that there is interest in understanding how new technologies and practices can support, and in some instances, update existing infrastructure and practices. Overall the pace of change and interest is picking up steam.

4 What is your Primary Backup Target? Tape is being used as a primary backup target more than we expected Adoption of disk a target for backup is still significant and has caught up with tape Adoption of cloud a primary target for backup is further developed than we expected and is preferred backup option by more SMBs than enterprises Optical is still in use, however in our sample survey it was exclusively used by small businesses In ASEAN IT departments are holding onto their investment in tape as a primary target for backup longer than other regions. The general global trend is one of tape being used for archive rather than primary backup target. Our anecdotal opinion is that whilst the decline of tape in favour of disk and cloud is grabbing headlines, the reality is that IT departments in ASEAN are not throwing out tape technology as quickly as the headlines might suggest. We also believe that new implementations are likely to not choose tape and would expect that over time disk and cloud will become increasingly dominant as companies slowly retire their investments in tape. This willingness to continue using tape for backup is an indication that data protection software vendors that have a background in supporting tape will maintain strong appeal in ASEAN as long as they are forward looking in bringing new technologies to market to enhance their legacy capabilities.

5 Which Backup Software are you using? The backup software market is becoming more fragmented than we have seen historically No one dominant player Smaller companies continue to use in-built utilities either in the OS or provided by NAS vendors The dominance of Symantec Backup Exec from 10 years ago looks to have been significantly eroded. Our sample set has a spread of enterprise and SMB respondents and this skews the figures. The results are not a definitive representation of the backup software landscape. A number of key players that we know with significant market share have not been represented here. We also note that Net Vault features in the list and sense that in ASEAN this may be a legacy of strong presence from the original vendor (Bakbone Software) with renewed focus from Dell Software Group which acquired the company in However the overriding picture is still valid in our opinion: namely that the market has become much more fragmented. However, traditional players, including arcserve and Symantec, continue to feature heavily. Among smaller companies there is still preference to use foc (free of charge) utilities from OS vendor or NAS vendors as in our opinion these often meet the more basic requirements in smaller IT environments

6 Do You Use Different Products For Physical and Virtual Machine Backup? Our sample set does not implement different backup products for their virtual and physical machines. Despite the rise of companies like Veeam that specialise in backup exclusively for virtual environments, it seems that there is resistance to utilising a different product for virtual machine backup over and above the solution being used for physical machine backup. We want to be clear that our data does not check the extent of virtualised environments within own sample set. We acknowledge this may give rise to anomalies in the results. However even factoring in this condition, these answers support the argument that the traditional physical backup players have improved their virtual capability to the point where it becomes difficult to justify two separate products for backing up a physical and virtual environment.

7 Would you consider using software from more than one vendor for your data requirements? Most companies are still using a single software product for their data protection needs More than a third of companies show resistance to using more than one product Slightly more than half of all surveyed companies are prepared to consider using multiple vendors for data protection DSA notes a historical preference amongst ASEAN IT professionals to standardise on a single software product for data protection. This preference is corroborated by the low percentage of companies that are actually using more than one product. This is further corroborated by a significant number of companies stating they will not consider using two products. The long term trend does, however, show a willingness to move to multiple products. DSA sees two important trends here. Traditional software providers will continue to have a market amongst a hard core of IT departments that are prepared to compromise on specific best of breed point products in favour of one company that can cover all requirements. At the same time the market will open to new offerings and point products from start-ups that focus in new technology areas such as software-defined and cloud-enabled IT. DSA expects that the data protection software provider landscape in ASEAN will develop differently from global trends. The new batch of providers in this space will see acceptance of their products develop more slowly. Traditional backup software vendors may be able to retain customers as long as they continue to develop and integrate new functions into their portfolio.

8 Do you have Different RPO and RTO for Different Types of Data? Despite multiple technologies available for differentiating data types and recoverability thereof surprisingly few are doing this Three quarters of those surveyed lack sophistication on recoverability of data. This is likely tied to legacy backup solutions that IT departments in the region are continuing to use. We see an opportunity for Data Protection vendors to do more to educate IT managers on the relative ease of building recovery plans and implementing technologies to support these plans. Given the nondisruptive options available today it seems that IT departments are missing out on developing more cost-effective ways to improve their overall recovery capability. That said, we note that over a quarter of companies surveyed are applying different techniques for RPO and RTO to different data types. This suggests that the move to introduce newer options, and technologies, is happening but at a slow rate.

9 How Long Do You Archive Your Backups? Nearly a third of companies continue to have requirements for long term retention The largest single group have backup retention requirements of under one year Typically backup retentions of longer than 5 years are driven by compliance laws and regulations (e.g. financial service companies regulations). Whilst the survey questions did not ask the reasons behind the retention period, we made the assumption that regulatory influence was responsible for nearly one third of companies holding long backup retention policies. We expect that such regulatory requirements will drive continued use of tape and technologies that support tape for years to come. On the other extreme our sample set showed over 40% of respondents keeping backups for less than a year. In nearly one third of these cases IT departments are retaining backup data for less than six months. In general we saw smaller companies having shorter backup retention policies. We believe the move to shorter retention times is a direct result of the adoption of disk as a primary backup target, and an indication that companies are prioritising speed of recovery over duration of archive. It should be noted, however, that this phenomenon is limited to organizations that appear to have no long-term data retention compliance requirements.

10 How Many Days Any Point In Time Would Suit Your Recovery Needs? Nearly three quarters of those surveyed said they require a week or less of any point in time recovery capability Only 5% of those surveyed claimed they would require more than one month of any point in time recoverability 94% of those surveyed claimed they would like to have some kind of any point in time recoverability These results do not tell us how many people actually have any point in time recovery deployed, rather they indicate IT department s desire. Typically any point in time capability is achieved by implementing Continuous Data Protection (CDP) technology. This survey indicates that ASEAN has a similar view on the purpose of CDP: namely that CDP should allow recoverability at any point of time over a short period typically less than a week. Based on our survey set more than half only require any point in time to the last 24 hours. This observation is aligned with global trends. When viewed together with the results of our survey question on backup data retention, it is clear that most companies do not see CDP as a replacement for backup but rather as a complement to it. We believe that these results corroborate general trends that CDP type technologies will come to dominate first line data protection, whilst traditional backup methods will co-exist with CDP type technology in order to handle long-term retention requirements.

11 Are you planning to change your data protection products? More than half of surveyed respondents expressed an interest in changing their current data protection products Over one third plan to make the change within 12 months Nearly half have no plans at all to change Global trends predict a larger percentage of IT departments changing their data protection software in the next 2 years. The fact that nearly half of the respondents clearly state they will not be making changes, corroborates that in the ASEAN region there is more reticence than in other markets to embrace change. In our opinion Data Protection vendors need to spend time educating IT managers in this region about the options available. The requirement to update data protection policies and practices is clearly there, even if execution is slower than in other regions.

12 Notes on Survey Methodology Sample Selection We used a combination of convenience and purposive sampling for this study. Focusing on DSA subscribers with whom we have convenient access and with known interest in data protection based on the content they had accessed on the site*. For the purposes of a data protection-based study, this method of sample selection was deemed appropriate as this survey needed to be completed by individuals with first-hand experience of backing up company data. Modes of Data Collection All surveys were completed using online forms, 90% of the respondents were directed to the form via content they viewed from DSA. 10% were directed to the form after being tele-canvassed by DSA telemarketing department. Response Formats DSA used a combination of Dichotomous and Nominal-polytomous response options for the survey questions. This level of control was implemented in order to give standardised answers that could be grouped but that were still wide ranging. Interviewer Effect As the survey was conducted using an online form, there can be bias inferred from interviewer effect. However there is potential for erroneous answers due to non-understanding of terms used in the questions. Data Cleansing - We removed survey responses that did not meet the criteria of respondents responsible for enterprise backup. Answers by respondents that were clearly from a consumer background were removed from the final selection set. The choice of which respondents to remove was left to individual researcher assessment. We acknowledge that this means it is possible though unlikely that a relevant respondent s answered may have been removed. However we are confident that the final sample selection were representative of the skill base we needed to tap into. Statistical Significance With a small sample selection, statistical significance can be put into question. Our sample set needed to have a specific skill set and as such quality of respondent was preferred over quantity. That said, we are unable to provide a range of representative accuracy for this survey. Instead we feel it provides a strong feel for the realities of the ASEAN data protection market.