CF20: 2024's Top Backup/Disaster Recovery Providers

Backup and disaster recovery, which includes various types of providers, continues to be in high demand with the onslaught of ransomware and other threats.

M&A continues to shake up the competitive landscape, such as Cohesity acquiring Veritas’ data protection business in a deal that values the combined company at $7 billion. In addition, a number of acquisitions include vendors buying security-focused startups.

This is our first annual “CF20” focused on top backup and disaster recovery providers; the second if you count our previous CP List. Analysts share their views on what it takes for backup and disaster recovery providers to succeed with the technology. It includes an updated list and fresh views on changes in the competitive landscape.

Malicious Threat Actors Driving Need for Backup, Disaster Recovery

Karyn Price, industry principal at Frost and Sullivan, said all data and application protection services – whether backup, disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) or secure file storage with integrated recovery capabilities – continue to be in high demand as businesses are increasingly threatened by malicious actors attempting to access corporate data for nefarious purposes.

Frost and Sullivan's Karyn Price

“Such attacks can severely impact businesses and result in damage to corporate reputation, loss of customers and revenue, and even the closure of the business,” she said. “In addition to escalating cyber threats, the explosion of data due to AI, coupled with data privacy and handling regulations, are driving adoption of these services.”

Related:CF20: Cybersecurity Providers Making the Most of AI

The data protection market has experienced convergence in recent years as threats escalate and businesses find data use more important, Price said. Providers that previously only handled backup and recovery are often now also providing at least some security capabilities, especially around ransomware detection and mitigation. Many are also providing heightened security of storage files by offering technologies like blockchain, immutable or air-gapped storage.

“Many major players, like Veeam, Commvault and Acronis, have significantly improved their security features in recent years, some through acquisitions and some through organic growth," she said.

Adjacent Vendors Adding Backup, Disaster Recovery

Additionally, vendors that were previously in adjacent markets – like data security or storage – are adding backup and recovery functionality to their portfolio, whether through partnerships, acquisitions or organic product development, Price said.

“Nasuni is an excellent example,” she said. “The hybrid cloud storage provider offers a full-featured disaster recovery service as a function of its storage platform. The addition of adjacent market players into the data protection space is leading to a more segmented and congested market.”

Related:Tech Data Tackles Secondary Storage With Cohesity

Brent Ellis, senior analyst with Forrester, said for the backup market, there has been a lot more focus on how to address ransomware and cyber threats over the last few years. In addition, there’s the inclusion of SaaS workloads, container-based workloads and cloud infrastructure as a service-type workloads.

“But really what's driving adoption is ransomware and cyber threats,” he said. “If you look at all of the vendors in that market space, they've pivoted a lot of their marketing, a lot of their advertising towards recovery from ransomware, and then some of the vendors have even started to look at how you identify indicators of compromise before your data is actually affected. So there's a lot of fuzzy lines that are being crossed into the security space. Some of the vendors hit that stride early. Rubrik rebranded themselves more as a data security company, but all of the vendors are doing some sort of pivot in that direction."

Seven Components of Data Resilience

Forrester identifies the top seven components of data resilience as:

Much of the M&A has focused on bolstering and addressing some of the changes within the market, and not necessarily the acquisition of direct competitors, Ellis said.

“Cohesity buying Veritas is sort of an anomaly,” he said. “But it makes sense for those two vendors because they tend to address different needs within the enterprise and putting them together portfolio-wise would probably work out.”

Protecting Backup from Encryption

Rik Turner, senior principal analyst with Omdia, said backup and disaster recovery providers have discovered a new driver for their technology in the form of ransomware. (Canalys and Omdia are both owned by Informa, Channel Futures' parent company.)

Omdia's Rik Turner

“Clearly, the ability to restore from backup is critical if your production systems have all been encrypted by a ransomware attack,” he said. “Clearly, that also entails the backup guys knowing how to protect that backup from encryption, which we know the attackers seek to extend to the backup to neutralize that safety net, and some of the backup vendors are clearly addressing that requirement.”

In terms of M&A, Rubrik’s acquisition of data security posture management (DSPM) vendor Laminar was an important development, as was IBM’s acquisition of Polar that preceded it, Turner said.

“DSPM is definitely a logical addition to any backup offering, and those vendors that haven’t added it yet should be thinking about how to do so,” he said.

We’ve compiled a list above of 20 top backup and disaster recovery providers based on analysts’ feedback and recent news reports. It’s in no particular order. The list in the slideshow, is by no means complete. It includes well-known providers as well as lesser-known providers making strides in backup and disaster recovery.