As IT environments develop extra complicated, IT professionals are dealing with unprecedented strain to safe business-critical knowledge. With hybrid work the brand new normal and cloud adoption on the rise, knowledge is more and more distributed throughout completely different environments, suppliers and areas, increasing the assault floor for rising cyberthreats. Whereas the necessity for a robust knowledge safety technique has change into extra vital than ever, organizations discover themselves caught in a troublesome balancing act. They’re struggling to handle the rising prices and complexities of enterprise continuity and catastrophe restoration (BCDR) whereas making certain that their business-critical knowledge stays safe and recoverable.
To assist IT groups and managed service suppliers (MSPs) perceive how their friends are navigating these challenges, the State of Backup and Restoration Report 2025 has gathered insights from greater than 3,000 IT professionals, safety consultants and directors worldwide. The report reveals how companies are tackling as we speak’s largest knowledge safety challenges, the methods they’re adopting and the vital gaps that would go away them susceptible to knowledge loss and downtime.
So, the place do organizations stand? The survey signifies that the boldness in backup methods is declining, cloud adoption is outpacing knowledge safety methods and restoration expectations typically do not match actuality. On this article, we’ll discover the important thing findings from the report to assist IT groups and MSPs keep ready for what comes subsequent. In the meantime, for full insights and actionable methods, you’ll be able to obtain the entire report now and see how your group compares.
The backup paradox: Important but more and more unreliable
Information backup and restoration ought to be a security web for companies, however for a lot of, it has change into a supply of frustration, complexity and danger. The numbers inform a transparent story — backup inefficiencies are rising, IT groups are overburdened and safety vulnerabilities stay widespread. Let’s dive into the important thing findings.
Pattern #1: Information loss is not a query of “if” however “when.”
9 in 10 organizations skilled operational downtime up to now 12 months.
Pattern #2: Confidence in backup methods is declining.
Belief in backup options is slipping, leaving many companies questioning whether or not they can reliably get better from knowledge loss.
- Solely 40% of IT groups really feel assured of their backup methods.
- About 30% fear their backup technique is insufficient, elevating considerations about knowledge safety and recoverability.
- Greater than half of organizations plan to modify backup suppliers, citing price, inefficiency and restricted catastrophe restoration capabilities as main ache factors.
Pattern #3: Backup administration is a time-consuming burden.
Managing backups is not simply complicated — it is draining IT sources. As knowledge volumes develop, IT groups are spending extra time than ever sustaining backup methods, testing restoration processes and troubleshooting failures.
- IT groups now spend 10+ hours per week managing backups, including to operational pressure.
- The variety of companies spending greater than three hours weekly on backups jumped from 5% in 2022 to 23% in 2024, denoting a major rise in effort and time.
- Round 35% of organizations would not even know if backups had been skipped or missed, highlighting vital gaps in monitoring and testing.
Pattern #4: Safety gaps are leaving backups uncovered.
Backup methods are speculated to be the final line of protection in opposition to cyberthreats. Nevertheless, many comprise severe safety flaws that put knowledge in danger.
- About 25% of workloads lack insurance policies that restrict unauthorized entry to backups, leaving them susceptible to malicious assaults.
- There are various ranges of safety for credentials throughout companies. Solely 33% of companies use devoted password managers. Others depend on much less safe strategies like doc storage platforms or browser-based password instruments, introducing potential vulnerabilities.
The restoration hole: Why companies cannot bounce again quick sufficient
Having the backup of information is one factor; recovering it shortly and reliably is one other. IT groups face important hurdles in making certain quick, seamless restoration when catastrophe strikes.
Pattern #1: Fast and dependable knowledge restoration stays a significant problem in knowledge safety.
The highest considerations cited by IT groups with respect to knowledge safety are prices, compliance necessities and the precise strategy of recovering knowledge. Since IT groups spend hours managing and troubleshooting backup points, it leaves little time for testing and validating restoration processes, growing the chance of failure when it issues most.
Pattern #2: Backup and DR testing gaps go away companies susceptible.
A backup answer is simply nearly as good as its potential to revive knowledge, but testing stays inconsistent throughout organizations.
- Solely 15% of companies conduct day by day backup checks, that means most function with a stage of danger that would jeopardize restoration in a disaster.
- Catastrophe restoration (DR) testing goes past simply verifying backups — it entails assessing restoration areas, timelines and effectiveness. Whereas round 20% of companies conduct DR checks weekly and one other 23% check month-to-month, the remaining both check irregularly or in no way, leaving them unprepared for real-world restoration eventualities.
Pattern #3: Most companies overestimate their restoration readiness.
The dearth of frequent testing is obvious when taking a look at precise restoration occasions.
- Whereas near 60% of companies consider they’ll get better in a day, solely 35% truly do.
- Alarmingly, greater than 10% of companies do not even know the way lengthy it could take to get better their business-critical SaaS knowledge, if they might get better it in any respect.
- Amongst companies utilizing public cloud companies like Azure, virtually 90% depend on native knowledge safety instruments, but greater than 60% of them lack true DR capabilities.
The cloud dilemma: Embracing progress with out sacrificing safety
The cloud is now the spine of recent IT, powering every thing from infrastructure to collaboration. Companies are quickly adopting cloud and SaaS options to boost flexibility and scalability, however many are overlooking a vital issue: knowledge safety.
Pattern #1: Cloud adoption continues to surge.
The shift to cloud-hosted workloads is simply rising stronger, pushed by the necessity for agility and resilience.
- Greater than 50% of workloads are actually hosted within the cloud, with that quantity anticipated to succeed in 61% inside two years.
Most organizations now leverage hybrid and multicloud methods to extend flexibility and keep away from reliance on a single supplier. Nevertheless, gaps in cloud and SaaS knowledge safety stay, placing vital enterprise info in danger. Notably, SaaS platforms now function the spine of day by day enterprise operations, however with out the precise backup methods, this knowledge stays susceptible.
Pattern #2: Small and midsize companies (SMBs) choose Google Workspace, whereas enterprises favor Microsoft 365.
- Microsoft 365 dominates the market, with over 50% of organizations counting on it for collaboration and productiveness.
- Google Workspace (35%) stays a best choice as properly, significantly amongst SMBs.
- Microsoft 365 Entra ID (31%) and Dynamics (30%) present that companies are additionally more and more adopting specialised Microsoft merchandise.
- Salesforce (25%) rounds out the highest 5.
Pattern #3: Price, workload compatibility, vendor lock-in and safety considerations are the most important obstacles to cloud migration.
Whereas cloud adoption continues to speed up, companies nonetheless face main hurdles in making certain a seamless transition and securing their knowledge.
The teachings discovered: What IT leaders should prioritize now
The State of Backup and Restoration Report 2025 reveals that vital safety gaps stay whereas securing on-premises, cloud, endpoint and SaaS knowledge. There’s a rising disconnect between backup investments and precise restoration confidence, with IT groups uncertain whether or not they can restore knowledge when it issues most. With out a extra resilient strategy to knowledge safety, companies danger extended downtime, drastic monetary losses and irreversible knowledge breaches.
Have you ever thought-about how a lot an outage might price your group per minute? Based on the IT Outages: 2024 Prices and Containment Report, the typical price of unplanned downtime is $14,056 per minute per group.
Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at the breakdown of downtime prices throughout completely different enterprise sizes.
Enterprise continuity is dependent upon quicker, extra resilient restoration. Nevertheless, many organizations aren’t as ready as they suppose. To attenuate downtime and monetary losses, IT leaders should rethink their strategy to BCDR. A contemporary BCDR technique goes past fundamental backup, incorporating multilayered safety, automation and hybrid cloud options to strengthen resilience and guarantee enterprise continuity in opposition to as we speak’s refined cyberthreats.
Safety alone is not sufficient, although. With out common testing, organizations are left guessing whether or not their restoration plans will maintain up in an actual disaster. Extra frequent backup and catastrophe restoration testing ensures that restoration goals are met when it issues most. Automation performs a key function there. By automating testing, IT groups can repeatedly confirm their potential to revive knowledge inside required timeframes — all with out disrupting the manufacturing atmosphere. This removes the guide burden and supplies actual insights into restoration readiness.
On the identical time, stronger safety controls are additionally important to defending backup environments from unauthorized entry. Nearly 94% of ransomware victims have their backups focused by attackers, which leaves them with no different alternative however to pay the ransom to get again their entry. On that entrance, enhancing credential administration and implementing stricter entry controls can assist stop malicious actors from accessing backup infrastructure.
Remaining ideas: The way forward for BCDR begins now
The IT panorama is altering, and with it, the dangers are escalating. As companies push additional into the cloud and rely extra on SaaS purposes, their backup and catastrophe restoration methods should evolve simply as shortly. Cyberthreats are extra superior, downtime is dearer and organizations can not afford to deal with backup as an afterthought. To maintain tempo with this new actuality, companies should reassess their strategy and strengthen their defenses in opposition to the rising threats that would deliver operations to a halt.
For IT groups and MSPs, the insights from the State of Backup and Restoration Report 2025 present a transparent roadmap to evaluate vulnerabilities and enhance resilience earlier than catastrophe strikes. Obtain the complete report now to benchmark your technique, uncover vital gaps, and construct a stronger, extra dependable BCDR plan for the long run.
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