SMBs Spend $20K — Or More — Per Hour On Downtime

By Cheryl Knight, contributing writer

A new International Data Corporation (IDC) survey, sponsored by Acronis, has shed light on SMBs’ needs in the areas of protecting and restoring data, as well as reducing the cost of downtime in the workplace. Based on a worldwide survey of more than 400 SMBs, the study reveals a glaring need in several key business areas.

The Cost Of Downtime

“The findings released today are clear — it’s a different world for IT managers today, and data backup for a small or medium-sized business is more complex than ever,” according to Eric Burgener, research director of storage at IDC. “Data sizes and types continue to evolve, as does the number of servers and operating systems each company uses. This leads to a host of new challenges IT managers face to make sure they can back up and protect their data and restore operations quickly.”

According to the survey, downtime represented one of the key areas where SMBs lost money. In fact, almost 80 percent of the companies surveyed reported that downtime costs them an estimated $20,000 or more per hour. Over 20 percent of those surveyed estimated the cost to range closer to $100,000.

In these instances, IT solution providers can upsell cloud solutions to their clients while saving them money in the long term, according to a Business Solutions article on the subject.

Backing Up Stored Data

When it comes to backing up data, 37 percent of the companies surveyed said they have three different infrastructures to store — physical, virtual, and cloud data. Additionally, 54 percent of SMBs back up their virtual servers as much as they do their physical servers.

For virtualized environments, 67 percent utilize a hypervisor that isn’t Hyper-V or vSphere. This shows a need for the support of multiple hypervisor types outside of the more popular Hyper-V and vSphere server architectures. VARs and MSPs can use the checklist provided in the following article to help determine the best online solution for customers.

Cloud Acceptance On A Global Scale

Ninety-three percent of SMBs in the U.S. back up at least a portion of their data to the cloud. This statistic compares to a global figure of 65 percent. The main reason for failing to back up to the cloud is security concerns, especially outside the U.S. These survey findings reveal a need for businesses to address security in the cloud, especially in countries outside the U.S. where security of SMB data seems to be a greater concern.

Additional survey results include insights on:

• How organizations protect data in hybrid physical, virtual, and cloud environments
• Emerging strategies for offsite backup and hybrid data protection
• How business and IT address data protection challenges of complexity and data growth

You can download a free copy of the survey here.