Global cloud spend grows as data protection lags behind

More than two-fifths (43%) of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) falsely believe that cloud providers are responsible for protecting and recovering data in the public cloud, according to Arcserve.

Results from Acrserve’s annual global survey also show that this misconception of data protection responsibility can lead to increased vulnerability, especially amid a growing cloud investment trend for the cloud.

Conducted by Dimensional Research, the survey was fielded in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, with 1,121 respondents. 

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All participants had a budget or technical decision-making responsibility for data management, data protection, and storage solutions at a company with 100 – 2,500 employees and at least 5 TB of data. 

Results showed that 82% of ITDMs expect an increase in hybrid cloud investments, and 70% expect an increase in multi-cloud investments.

In 2019, 46% of ITDMs believed it was the cloud provider’s responsibility. The misconception persisted in 2020, with 44% believing the same, and now stands at 43% in the latest research. 

The research highlights several additional factors that reveal a concerning lag in data protection, such as nearly two-thirds of ITDMs surveyed believe cloud backups are safer than on-premises backups.

One-third reported poorly documented disaster recovery plans, and 41% reported that their organisation’s disaster recovery plans were not updated.

“Organisations need to understand that data protection and recovery responsibility lies with them, not with the cloud provider,” said David Lenz, VP in the Asia-Pacific region at Arcserve.

“The time to act is now, particularly amid growing hybrid and multi-cloud adoption as proven by our annual research with some 82% of ITDMs expecting to increase hybrid cloud investments and 70% expecting to increase multi-cloud investment,” said Lenz.