Cloud Backup Gains Confidence, Traction Among SMBs

SMBs now are more comfortable with cloud backup, as nearly 90 percent believe it is equally or more secure than onsite backup.

That’s according to new survey data from Clutch. The survey was conducted in March and included more than 300 SMBs with one to 500 employees. Most respondents worked at the manager level or above.

Clutch cloud analyst Alex Miller tells Channel Partners that when using cloud technologies, SMBs are largely reliant on storage-oriented platforms for their backup needs rather than bare-metal options. Some vendors, such as Carbonite, have been able to address this trend by offering traditional storage features, such as file sharing and collaboration, he said.

“Additionally, we see that those who do adopt cloud backup are supportive of the technology,” he said. “Like many areas of cloud, the challenge is identifying the benefits (costs, reliability, security, etc.) to bring in new users who still rely on on-prem options.”

Nearly 40 percent of SMBs cite security as the top benefit of using online backup services, ahead of providing additional data space and simpler backup.{ad}

More than a third of SMBs reported no challenges when using online backup, according to the survey. Also, nearly half of SMBs back up their data online daily, keeping in line with industry experts’ advice.

The data shows that users are aware of the benefits of utilizing cloud technologies for traditionally on-premises procedures, which presents a “great opportunity to vendors playing to the SMB market,” Miller said. As cloud becomes more present in the workplace, the fear will continue to subside, and vendors have an opportunity to attract more clients and offer more services, he said.

“The challenge will continue to be consumer education, which has been at play in almost all areas of cloud adoption,” he said. “Educating consumers that the cloud, when used correctly, can be safer than on-prem options is a long-standing battle; however, technical differences (such as traditional storage and bare-metal) require even more effort, particularly to SMBs operating in non-technical fields that seek a simple approach to this basic need.”

“Cloud computing continues to transform IT as well as the options available to meet business continuity objectives,” Bob Lamendola, general manager of infrastructure services at mindSHIFT, an IT outsourcing and cloud services provider, told Channel Partners. “Cloud computing environments will become more reliable, more scalable with higher availability than ever. Greater affordability, combined with enhanced testing capabilities and improvements in network bandwidth, server and storage capacity, will allow more companies to take advantage of low-cost and high-quality recovery of their applications and their ever-increasing volume of data in case of a disruption.”