Data Health CheckSurvey reSultS

Executive summaryWelcome to the fifth edition of the Databarracks Data Health Check. Once again, we’ve surveyed hundreds of IT professionals working across 19 different fields to capture the attitudes and behaviours currently defining the way businesses use IT.

We questioned 401 IT professionals from UK companies, ranging from IT managers to CIOs, about their experiences with Backup, Disaster Recovery, Cloud Computing, Storage, Security and Skills.

Last year’s survey used the 2008 Data Health Check as a mile-marker for the changing landscape of IT infrastructure – more specifically, to demonstrate the increased uptake of cloud services across organisations of all sizes and industries over the 5 intervening years.

Just one year later, we must think more laterally to pinpoint the subtle differences in IT practices. As such, respondents have been grouped in two ways: size and industry.

First, organisations have been split into 3 categories: small, medium and large organisations, according to the number of employees.

We also split the respondents by industry. The 19 initial sectors have been grouped in to 6 categories based on related professions with similar IT requirements:

Backup

Disaster Recovery

The state of cloud computing

Storage

Compliance and data security

Skills and employability

Demography

Appendix

Contents3

9

5

10

13

7

11

14

Small businesses

(0-49 employees)

34%

Medium businesses

(50-499 employees)

35%

Large businesses

(500+ employees)

32%

Public Services: Charity, education, health, transport, utilities

Professional Services: Legal, professional services, support services

Consumer, Retail and Leisure: Consumer goods, leisure, retail

Industrial: Construction, engineering, industrial, natural resources

Finance: Banking and finance

Technology: Technology and telecoms

Data Health Check Survey Results 2014 3

32%employ dedicated backup staff and a further 25% spend over 2 hours managing their systems every day

40%spend less than 30 minutes on the task per day

65%spend less than 30 minutes a day managing it

Q: What is your current backup method?

More respondents are using a 3rd party online backup company than in previous years, but tape remains sticky.

BackupBusinesses are getting smarter about data retention policies, but almost a fifth of respondents are still keeping all data forever.

Smaller organisations spend the least time on backup:

Consumer, retail & leisure businesses spend the least amount of time on backup:

4%None

4%Tape only

22%Disk only

24%Combination of disk and tape

24%Online backup (between sites)

19%Online backup (to a third party backup company)

4%Other

large businesses employ dedicated backup staff:

Data Health Check Survey Results 2014 4

large organisations Small organisations

22% listed ‘human error’ as the main cause of data loss over the last 12 months ...

... compared to just 6% listed human error as main cause of data loss

10% of larger organisations lost data as a direct consequence of an external security breach ...

... compared to just 1% of small organisations and 7% of mid-size organisations

Only 3% of large organisations have no data retention policy ...

... compared to 23% of small organisations

Q: What is your data retention policy? Q: What were the causes of any data loss over the last 12 months?

BaCk

up

Natural disaster 5%

External security breach (Hacker / Virus)

6%

Internal security breach (member of staff) 7%

Theft 7%

Corruption 15%

Human error / accident 18%

Software failure 19%

Hardware failure 21%

Other 1%

9% of Consumer, Retail and Leisure businesses experienced data loss because of human error, compared to 23% in Technology and 29% in Finance.

On the other hand, as one of the most tightly regulated industries, none of the financial organisations surveyed reported experiencing data loss as a consequence of an internal security breach (such as employee theft).

5%

11%

18%

18%

49%

I don’t know

We don’t have one

We have an internally set policy

We keep all data forever

We keep data for a period specified for

regulatory compliance

vs

5Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

Q: Do you have a business continuity plan?Disaster RecoveryMedium and large organisations are investing in business continuity planning, smaller organisations are falling behind.

Business continuity plan ownership by company size:

52%Yes

19%No but we will within the next 12 months

19%No and we don’t intend to implement one within the next 12 months

11%I don’t know

41%of small organisations don’t have a plan and don’t intend to implement one in the next year

Small businesses

Medium businesses

Large businesses

30%

54%

73%

There’s a significant disparity between how small and large organisations approach business continuity planning.

Small businesses are not only lagging in terms of current adoption, they also represent the largest group not intending to adopt any plan in the near future.

Data Health Check Survey Results 2014 6

Q: What is most important to you in a disaster recovery situation?

Q: Have you tested any elements of your disaster recovery in the last 12 months?

’Time’ was the most commonly cited reason for not testing disaster recovery across all groups.

However, testing will become easier given that DRaaS was the most or second most likely cloud service to be adopted in the next year across all categories.

DiS

aSt

er r

eCo

very

39%Yes

26%No, but we’re planning to within the next 12 months

22%No, and we’re not planning to

13%I don’t know

55%of large organisations have tested their disaster recovery in the last year, compared to 25% of smaller ones

“Everything” or “file data” were the top choices for the most important thing to save in a disaster.

However, 63% of all respondents don’t use any tools for analysis of file data.

Accounts 12%

File Data 24%

All equally important 26%

Other 1%

HR 1%

ERP 3%

Inventory control

4%

Test and development environment

3%

CRM 6%

Telephone system 5%

Website

4%

Email 11% DR

7Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

Q: Which of the following cloud services have you already adopted?

Q: How many different cloud-based services does your company use today?

The state of cloud computingMore cloud services are being used, but adoption is gradual and often discrete.

None

I don’t know

Five +

Four

25%One

23%Two

22%

18%

7%Three

4%

2%

Disaster Recovery as a Service was either the most or second most likely service to be adopted across all business sizes.

A quarter of mid-sized organisations stated they intend to adopt Infrastructure as a Service in the next 12 months.

Business Process as a Service (BPaaS)6%

Desktop as a Service (DaaS)9%

Backup as a Service (BaaS)21%

Disaster Recovery (DRaaS)16%

Platform as a Service (PaaS)18%

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)18%

Software as a Service (SaaS)21%

of smaller organisations have adopted no cloud services - twice as many as either large or mid sized organisations

36%

Data Health Check Survey Results 2014 8

Q: Which factors do you consider to be most important when selecting a cloud provider?

tHe

Sta

te o

F Cl

ou

D C

oM

puti

NG

62%

38%

33%21%

19%

18%

13%

10%

5%

11%

17%

SecurityFunctionality of serviceReputationStandard of SLA (service level agreement)

Hardw

areD

ata centresSize of com

pany

Location of cloud service provider HQ

Other

Hypervisor

Location of hosting

However, those who had adopted fewer cloud services tended to rate security more highly, indicating a disparity between expectation and reality.

The majority of respondents from every industry rated security as the most important quality when selecting a cloud provider.

percentage of respondents who rate security highly:

78%

48%

59%

36%

74%

49%

Medium organisationsSmall organisations Large organisations

Respondents who’ve adopted 1 or 0 cloud services

Respondents who’ve adopted 2+ cloud services

9Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

Q: What is your fastest area of storage growth?

Q: Do you actively distinguish between recently accessed files and files that haven’t been accessed in over a year?

StorageFile data and email are pushing storage capacity to breaking point, but the majority of respondents don’t actively distinguish between new and old data.

5%

11%

18%

18%

49% 49%

33%

18%

Yes

NoI don’t know

40%of mid-sized organisations actively distinguish between active and inactive data in their data lifecycle management

Hardware and maintenance were consistently cited as the biggest costs associated with this storage growth.

Email and file data were unanimously the greatest areas of storage growth for organisations across all industries, often by a margin of at least 10 percentage points.

File Data 24%

HR 2%

Other 1%

ERP 2%

Accounts 10%

Test and development environment

3%

Email 23%

CRM 9%

Archive 6%

Log data 4%

10Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

Q: Have you reviewed your security policies in the last 12 months in response to a cyber-threat?

Compliance and data securityHow have businesses responded to the several high-profile vulnerabilities of 2014?

Of the 106 respondents who reported they had not reviewed their security policies in the last year, an astounding 21 chose not to despite having experienced significant cyber-attacks in the last 12 months. CryptoLocker, Heartbleed and Keyloggers were the most common cyber threats experienced.

Respondents that have been affected by cyber threats in the last 12 months:

39%Industrial

37%Consumer,

Retail & Leisure

42%Finance

46%Public Services

30%Technology

30%Professional Services

32%

29%

26%

13%

Yes, we have reviewed our

security policies and

made no changes

No, we have not reviewed our security policies

I don’t know

Yes, we have reviewed our

security policies and have made

changes

Small businesses

Medium businesses

Large businesses

48% 70% 63%

yes, we have reviewed our security policies:

11Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

Q: Who makes the purchasing decisions for cloud computing at your company?

Q: in the last 12 months, has your it budget:

Skills and EmployabilityMore people gain first hand experience of cloud management, but is the skill gap actually closing?

More IT budgets are growing than declining, though over half have stayed the same.

Elsewhere, company size had noticeable impact on how respondents rated their own competence with cloud management. Conversely splitting respondents by industry did not reveal any significant variation.

Rated themselves as poor/ very poor

Rated themselves as good/ very good

31%

41%37%

22%

Self assessment of competence implementing and managing cloud services (Small vs. large organisations):

CFO

2%

IT Manager

17%

CIO

7%

Finance Director

10%

CEO

13%

Board

6%

It's a collaborative

decision

11%

Other

2%

IT Director

22%

Individualdepartment

heads

3%

Stayed the same

52%Decreased16%

Increased23%

12Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

A self-assessment of competence vs. experience of implementing and managing cloud services:

Poor

No personal experience

Manager

Very good

Com

pete

nce

Experience

40%

36%63%

Q: What experience have you had with migrating to cloud services?

In most cases, experience of implementing cloud services correlates with competence, however...

36% of respondents who had no active role in a cloud migration rated their competence as “very good” and 40% who had personally managed a migration rated their competence as “poor” or “average”.

Skil

lS a

ND

eM

plo

yaBi

lity

43%

16%

25%

16%

I was an influential member of the team who managed the migration

I have no personal experience of migrating to cloud services

I have personally managed the migration process

I was a part of a team who managed the migration but I did not have an active role

What’s next?Take a look at the Data Health Check interactive infographic, read the 2012 / 2013 reports or visit www.databarracks.com to find out more.

13Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

DemographyOur 401 respondents broken down by industry, size, seniority, IT maturity and location.

Q: What best describes your business sector?Banking & Finance 6% 24

Charity/NGO 2% 6

Construction & Property 6% 22

Consumer Goods 1% 3

Education 7% 28

Engineering 9% 36

Health 6% 23

Industrial 3% 12

Legal 2% 9

Leisure 3% 11

Media 1% 5

Natural Resources 1% 4

Professional Services 11% 44

Retail 5% 21

Support Services 3% 11

Technology 16% 64

Telecommunications 4% 17

Transport 6% 22

Utilities 3% 10

Other 7% 29

Q: How many employees does your company have?

< 15 25%

25-49 8%

50-99 9%

100-249 13%

250-499 12%

500-999 6%

1000-4999 9%

5000+ 18%

Q: What is your position within the business?

Corporate / board level responsible for IT 15%

Director level responsible for IT/IS 21%

IT Manager (inc. Network Managers etc) 29%

Technical Specialist 23%

IT Consultant 13%

Q: How many employees in your it department?

< 5 36%

5-10 13%

11-15 14%

16-30 12%

31-100 12%

100+ 14%

Q: Where is your UK head office located?

North East 4%

North West 12%

Yorkshire and The Humber 7%

East Midlands 7%

West Midlands 9%

East of England 7%

London 24%

South East 17%

South West 6%

Scotland 6%

Wales 3%

Northern Ireland 1%

Other 1%

What is your annual turnover?

< £5m 36%

£5 - 9.9m 9%

£10 - 24.9m 10%

£25 – 49.9m 10%

£50 – 99.9m 7%

£100 – 249.9m 6%

£250 – 499.9m 6%

£500 – 999.9m 5%

> £1000m 14%

14Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

AppendixWhat is your current backup method?

None 4%Tape only 4%Combination of disk and tape 24%Disk only 22%Online backup (between sites) 24%Online backup (to a third party backup company)

19%

Other 4%

How do you offsite your backups?

Copy to tape, take offsite 17%Replicate to offsite disk 56%No offsite copy 22%Other 5%

What were the causes of any data loss over the last 12 months? (tick all that apply)

Hardware failure 21%Software failure 19%Corruption 15%Theft 7%Human error / accident 18%Internal security breach (member of staff) 7%External security breach (Hacker / Virus) 6%Natural disaster 5%None 49%Other 1%

What is your data retention policy?

We don’t have one 11%We keep all data forever 18%We keep data for a period specified for regulatory compliance

49%

We have an internally set policy 18%I don’t know 5%

On average, how much time does your organisation spend on backup each day?

Less than 30 minutes 32%Less than 2 hours 28%More than 2 hours 16%Dedicated member of staff 17%None 7%

Do you have a Business Continuity Plan?

Yes 52%No but we will within the next 12 months 19%

No and we don’t intend to implement one within the next 12 months

19%

I don’t know 11%

Who is involved in the writing of your business continuity plan? (tick all that apply)

IT Manager 50%IT Director 38%CIO 16%CFO 10%CEO 28%Finance Director 19%Individual department heads (HR Manager, Marketing Manager, etc.)

23%

Business Continuity Manager 23%Operations Manager 21%Board 13%I don’t know 6%Other 1%

In your organisation, who is ultimately in charge of the business continuity plan?

IT Manager 16%IT Director 22%Business Continuity Manager 16%Operations Manager 7%Financial Director/CFO 8%MD/CEO 23%I don’t know 7%Other 1%

Have you tested any elements of your disaster recovery process in the last 12 months?

Yes 39%No, but we’re planning to within the next 12 months

26%

No, and we’re not planning to 22%I don’t know 13%

If you haven’t tested your disaster recovery process, why not? (tick all that apply)

Cost 18%Lack of time for testing 35%Fear of prolonged downtime 17%Lack of staff with relevant skills to carry out testing

18%

Departments unable to agree on a good time to test

9%

I don’t know 27%Other 5%

What is most important to you in a disaster recovery situation?

Email 11%File Data 24%Telephone system 5%CRM 6%Test and development environment 3%Inventory control 4%ERP 3%Accounts 12%HR 1%Website 4%All equally important 26%Other 1%

On average, how often do you perform restores of data?

Every day 15%Weekly 21%Monthly 21%Yearly 10%Less than once per year 20%I don't know 14%

How long would it currently take for you to recover from a disaster?

Less than 5 minutes 3%Less than 1 hour 12%Less than 4 hours 19%Less than 8 hours 13%Less than 12 hours 10%Less than 24 hours 12%Less than 48 hours 9%More than 48 hours 5%I don’t know 19%

What would be your ideal RTO (Recovery Time Objective)?

Less than 5 minutes 8%Less than 1 hour 25%Less than 4 hours 21%Less than 8 hours 11%Less than 12 hours 9%Less than 24 hours 8%Less than 48 hours 3%More than 48 hours 1%I don’t know 14%

Which of the following cloud services have you already adopted? (Tick all that apply)

Software as a Service (SaaS) 21%Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 18%Platform as a Service (BaaS) 18%

Disaster Recovery (DRaaS) 16%Backup as a Service (BaaS) 21%Desktop as a Service (DaaS) 9%Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) 6%None 35%Other 3%

Which of the following cloud services do you expect to adopt in the next 12 months? (Tick all that apply)

Software as a Service (SaaS) 13%Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) 15%Platform as a Service (PaaS) 12%Disaster Recovery (DRaaS) 18%Backup as a Service (BaaS) 16%Desktop as a Service (DaaS) 9%Business Process as a Service (BPaaS) 4%None 45%Other 2%

Which of the following cloud services do you use? (select all that apply)

Salesforce 6%SAP 13%Google Apps 16%GoToMeeting 8%Office 365 20%NetSuite 5%Amazon Web Services 10%Google Cloud Platform 12%Microsoft Azure 12%vCloud Hybrid Service 3%None 32%Other 7%

Which of the services do you backup? (select all that apply)

Salesforce 10%SAP 17%Google Apps 16%GoToMeeting 10%Office 365 23%NetSuite 11%Amazon Web Services 11%Google Cloud Platform 12%Microsoft Azure 14%vCloud Hybrid Service 4%None 13%I don’t know 13%Other 3%

15Data Health Check Survey Results 2014

app

eND

ix

Which factors do you consider to be most important when choosing a cloud service provider? (Tick all that apply)

Security 62%Reputation 33%Size of company 13%Functionality of service 38%Location of hosting 17%The hypervisor 11%The hardware 19%The data centres 18%The location of the cloud service provider HQ 10%The standard of SLA (service level agreement) 21%Other 5%

What size internet connection does your office currently have?

Less than 2Mbps 2%2 to 10Mbps 12%10 – 50Mbps 20%50 – 100Mbps 19%100 – 250Mbps 12%250 – 999Mbps 5%1Gbps + 10%I don’t know 21%

Do you use any tools for analysis of file data?

Yes (please specify below) 13%No 63%I don’t know 24%

Do you actively distinguish between files that have been recently accessed and files that have not been accessed in over a year?

Yes 33%No 49%I don’t know 18%

What is your fastest area of storage growth?

Email 23%File Data 24%CRM 9%Test and development environment 3%ERP 2%Accounts 10%HR 2%Log data 4%Archive 6%I don’t know 19%Other 1%

What is your biggest cost associated with storage growth?

Backup 13%Hardware 22%Maintenance 18%Physical real estate 9%Support contracts 8%Cost of high performance disk 6%I don’t know 23%Other 1%

Which of the following cyber threats have you been affected by in the last year? (tick all that apply)

Carberp 4%CryptoLocker 9%CosmicDuke 5%GOZeus 6%Heartbleed bug 8%KeyLogger 9%Perkle 5%Reveton Ransomware 2%Shylock 5%SpyEye 5%ZeroAccess Rootkit 2%ZitMo 1%None 64%Other 4%

Have you reviewed you security policies in the last 12 months in response to recent cyber threats?

Yes, we have reviewed our security policies and have made changes

29%

Yes, we have reviewed our security policies and made no changes

32%

No, we have not reviewed our security policies 26%I don’t know 13%

Have you reviewed your backup schedule and RPOs (Recovery Point Objectives) in the last 12 months in response to recent cyber threats?

Yes, we have reviewed our backup schedules and have reduced them

18%

Yes, we have reviewed our backup schedules and made no changes

34%

No, we have not reviewed our backup schedules

29%

I don’t know 16%N/A 3%

Who makes the purchasing decisions for cloud computing at your company?

IT Manager 17%IT Director 22%CIO 7%Finance Director 10%CEO 13%CFO 2%Individual department heads (HR Manager, Marketing Manager, etc.)

3%

Board 6%It's a collaborative decision 11%I don’t know 8%Other 2%

What training have you received in relation to cloud services in the last 12 months? (Tick all that apply)

AWS Certified Developer 4%AWS Certified Solutions Architect 6%Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK)

9%

Certified Cloud Professional (CCP) 7%Cisco Certified Design Expert 8%Rackspace CloudU 6%CompTIA Cloud Essentials 4%EXIN Cloud Computing Foundation 2%Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialist 4%Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) 7%Open Group IT Architect 2%Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in IaaS 4%Salesforce.com Certified Professional 3%VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Cloud Infrastructure Administration (VCAP-CIA)

8%

VMware Certified Professional - Cloud (VCP-Cloud)

6%

Tesora Cloud Fundamentals for OpenStack 3%Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) 7%Google Developers Academy 3%Microsoft Expert Level: Private cloud 3%None 59%Other 1%

How would you rate your current competence in the implementation and management of cloud services?

1 (very poor) 14%2 (poor) 16%3 (average) 38%4 (good) 21%5 (very good) 12%

What training are you planning to complete in the next 12 months? (Tick all that apply)

AWS Certified Developer 4%AWS Certified Solutions Architect 5%Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK)

8%

Certified Cloud Professional (CCP) 8%Cisco Certified Design Expert 8%Rackspace CloudU 6%CompTIA Cloud Essentials 4%EXIN Cloud Computing Foundation 2%Google Apps Certified Deployment Specialist 2%Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) 5%Open Group IT Architect 1%Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in IaaS 3%Salesforce.com Certified Professional 4%VMware Certified Advanced Professional – Cloud Infrastructure Administration (VCAP-CIA)

4%

VMware Certified Professional - Cloud (VCP-Cloud)

4%

Tesora Cloud Fundamentals for OpenStack 4%Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate (MCSA) 5%Google Developers Academy 2%Microsoft Expert Level: Private cloud 6%None 58%Other 1%

What experience have you had with migrating to cloud services?

I have personally managed the migration process

16%

I was an influential member of the team who managed the migration

25%

I was a part of a team who managed the migration but I did not have an active role

16%

I have no personal experience of migrating to cloud services

43%

In the last 12 months, has your IT budget:

Increased 23%Decreased 16%Stayed the same 52%I don’t know 9%