IT Pros’ Biggest 2014 Fear: Data Loss

IT Pros’ Biggest 2014 Fear: Data Loss

A solid majority of IT professionals—68%—say data loss will be their chief concern during next 12 to 18 months.

Challenges abound in the IT world, but none are greater than the rising tide of data. In fact, there’s a 77% chance that massive amounts of data will be a major challenge for IT pros for the next year or longer.

The U.S. economic might be in recovery mode, but 62% of IT professionals say that their organizations have limited funding for data management and protection.

Although cloud computing is considered the future of storage, tape offers several distinct advantages, according to IT professionals, such as costing 15 times less than a SATA disk.

Having IT involved in data management is extremely important, and 92% of IT professionals say that they’re involved in the day-to-day management of data issues and make data-related decisions with the business side.

Fifty-five percent of IT pros say they’re “early adopters” of new technologies, making the heavy reliance upon tape, and the desire to be involved in issue management, a key concern for these folks.

Cloud computing has significant room to grow in the coming years as just 64% of companies say they store their data in cloud-based services.

Not surprisingly, disk storage is a huge investment for companies, with 85% saying that they rely on disks to keep data safe.

Tape is inexpensive, but IT isn’t convinced of its value. Only 53% of companies currently store sensitive data on tape.

All of this information underlines one important point: data-retention compliance is extremely important. In fact, the average cost of complying with data-retention policies is $3.5 million. When companies fail to comply, that figure jumps to $9.4 million.