Symantec Corp. recently announced the global findings of its 2012 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, which discovered that disaster preparedness is closely connected with small and medium sized businesses’ (SMBs) adoption of technologies like virtualization, cloud computing, and mobility. The survey also revealed how willing SMBs are in adopting these technologies, often with improved disaster preparedness as a goal, and how the move is paying off for them.
“SMBs today have opportunities to embrace new technologies that provide them with a competitive edge and allow them to improve their ability to recover from a disaster while protecting the information their businesses depend on,” said Luichi Robles, senior country manager, Symantec Philippines.
“It is important for SMBs to have the capability to recover from a disaster as quickly as possible as they can’t afford lengthy downtimes. A sound disaster preparedness plan and comprehensive security and data protection solutions, combined with technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing and mobility, enable SMBs to better prepare for and quickly recover from potential disasters such as floods or fires, as well as lost or stolen mobile devices and laptops.”
Click to Tweet: Symantec survey, of SMBs using server virtualization, 71% improved disaster preparedness: http://bit.ly/Jmns1l
Survey Highlights
- Virtualization, cloud and mobility gaining SMB traction: It’s not just large businesses looking to cutting-edge technology, but a significant number of SMBs are adopting these innovations as well. More than one-third of them (35 percent) are now taking advantage of mobile devices for business use. Virtualization is also on the radar of SMBs, with 34 percent either currently deploying or already benefitting from server virtualization. More popular still is cloud computing, with 40 percent deploying public clouds and a similar number (43 percent) implementing private clouds.
- Effect of disaster preparedness top of mind for SMBs: In many cases, a desire to improve their disaster preparedness played a part in adopting these emerging technologies. In the case of private cloud computing, 37 percent reported that disaster preparedness influenced their decision, similar to the 34 percent who said it affected their commitment to public cloud adoption and server virtualization. This held true with mobility as well, with disaster preparedness influencing the decision 36 percent of the time.
- Early adopters enjoying better disaster preparedness: Whether by design or not, implementing these initiatives has improved the disaster preparedness of most of the survey respondents, particularly in the case of server virtualization – 71 percent reported that their disaster preparedness improved with virtualization. In the case of private and public cloud they also saw improvement, according to 43 percent and 41 percent, respectively. And mobility increased their disaster preparedness 36 percent of the time.
- Review and test your disaster preparedness: This should be completed at least once a quarter to ensure you are meeting your current security and backup needs.
Recommendations
The survey shows the importance of embracing innovation to better respond to challenges. In order for businesses to best take advantage of this opportunity to improve disaster preparedness, Symantec recommends taking the following actions:
- Start planning now: Develop a disaster preparedness plan today. Evaluate how strategic technologies such as mobile, virtualization and cloud can help in those efforts.
- Implement strategic technologies: Adopt integrated cloud backup for offsite storage and disaster recovery, and automated physical to virtual (P2V) backup conversion so you can recover your physical system to a virtual machines in case of a server failure.
- Protect your information: Use comprehensive security and backup solutions to protect your physical, virtual and mobile systems. You may even opt to backup to the cloud.
- Review and test your disaster preparedness: This should be completed at least once a quarter.
Symantec’s 2012 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey
Research firm ReRez fielded this survey by telephone in February and March of 2012. They spoke with decision-makers at 2,053 organizations worldwide, each with between 5 and 250 employees. Of the survey respondents, two-thirds were C-level and senior management; the others were IT representatives. Slightly more than one-third (35 percent) are taking advantage of mobility
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