In order to explore how AWS user organizations are fairing in the cloud, what suite of services, tools and best practices IT leaders prioritize and how they respond to growing security threats and compliance requirements, N2WS has published its 2020 AWS Cloud Data Protection Report using data collected by surveying some of the attendees who came by our booth recently at AWS re:Invent 2019. Find out more at https://n2ws.com

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How are you currently protecting your AWS workloads?
How many AWS accounts do you manage?
How long do you retain backups in AWS?
Where do you store backups for long term retention?
What’s your current Disaster Recovery (DR) plan?
How frequently do you carry out recovery drills?
What’s your process for recovering an application after an outage?
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The top 7 questions we asked AWS re:Invent attendees

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ABOUT THIS REPORT
To explore how organizations are using
AWS cloud —including what services
they use and how they respond to grow-
ing security threats— N2WS published
this 2020 AWS Data Protection report.
Inside, you’ll discover trends among AWS
service usage and data protection and in-
sights into potential pitfalls to avoid so
you can optimize your cloud (and, in turn,
drive more innovation).
Based on a survey of 130+ AWS re:Invent
attendees, the 2020 State of AWS Data
Protection report is a follow-up to last
year’s data protection report. Given the
year-over-year growth of the conference,
it’s clear that there are many benefits to
having your production data in the cloud.
However, we identified some common
pain points and some overlooked (and
concerning) practices in AWS cloud data
management.

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How are you currently
protecting your AWS
workloads?
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Reliance on Scripting has decreased by over
65% while overall use of backup is on the rise
Almost 60% of survey respondents (up
from only 9% last year) say that they use
AWS native solutions like AWS Backup or
Data Lifecycle Manager to protect their
workloads in the cloud. Also, the use of
homegrown scripts has gone down from
29% to 19% —a significant 65% decrease.
Perhaps most importantly, only around 7%
answered that they have no backup solu-
tion in place, compared to last year’s stag-
gering 32%. Even though this is a huge step
in the right direction, this number should
be approaching zero.
How are you currently protecting your AWS workloads?

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How many different
AWS accounts do you
manage?
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70% of those surveyed have 3+ AWS accounts
—a clear need for cross-account capability
While segmentation within a single AWS
account is often considered sufficient,
having additional AWS accounts provides a
higherlevelofsecurity—whichiscriticalfor
uniterrupted growth and innovation.
Andaround22%ofrespondentsstatedthat
they are running 5-20 AWS accounts, with
25% running over 20 AWS accounts. These
numbers show that organizations are run-
ning fairly large environments in AWS. It
seems that even startups are not limiting
themselves to a single account anymore.
How many different AWS accounts do you manage?

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How long do you retain
backups in AWS?
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Longer data retention periods of 2+ years are
still a significant share of the pie —about 30%
Compared to last year’s AWS Cloud Data
Protection Report, data retention periods
seem to have leveled. The amount of users
keeping backups for up to 90 days, has
dropped slightly —perhaps due to the high
cost of storing data outside of cold storage.
Overall, it appears that most teams store
their backups for either a very short
period of time (up to 30 days) or between
6 and 24 months. And about 30% have a
longer retention period of 2+ years which
is a significant share of the pie.
How long do you retain backups in AWS?

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Where do you store
backups for long term
retention?
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Over 50% of respondents still rely on Amazon
S3 for long-term backup storage
The majority of survey respondents, when
asked about their long-term backup, say
they rely on Amazon S3 for storage. This
numberisabout30%morethanthenumber
of respondents using AWS Glacier, which is
the proper service for storing cold data (in-
cluding backups).
Lastyear,wepredictedthatcoldstorageop-
tions would be used at faster pace. It seems
that many companies are transitioning
slowly and continuing to use options that
aren’t the most cost-efficient ones available
—perhaps due to shorter retention times.
Where do you store backups for long-term retention?

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Currently, what is your
your Disaster Recovery
(DR) plan?
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Less than 10% of respondents are making use
of cross-account DR to protect their data
The cloud can be a very dangerous place if
a recovery system is not setup and used
properly. Having a cross-account plan in
place ensures that a company is protected
from a single account breach —a much
more likely scenario than a complete
breach on multiple accounts.
The number of those who still rely solely on
cross-region DR is as high as last year, illus-
trating that we have made almost no prog-
ress whatsoever in this area. Thankfully,
the percentage of users who have no DR
plan at all has decreased by nearly 30%.
Currently, what is your Disaster Recovery (DR) plan?

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How frequently does
your team carry out
recovery drills?
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The number of teams running recovery drills has
increased by more than 2x over last year’s data
Having a DR solution as well as a properly
thought-out plan in place is only one part of
the picture. It is also important for a busi-
ness running in the cloud to ensure that
their DR solution is reliable, making recov-
ery drills a necessity.
Last year, almost 40% of attendees sur-
veyedansweredthattheyneverconductre-
covery drills. Thankfully, this number has
gone down drastically this year, to under
20%. And many teams now organize DR
drills multiple times per year —which is be-
coming increasingly necessary.
How frequently do you carry out recovery drills?

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What’s your process for
recovering applications
after an outage?
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Nearly 46% are recovering their applications
manually —lengthening downtime
Why is this such cause for alarm? Even as
AWS continues to dominate the public
cloud, it seems automation of backup and
recovery(acorecomponentofdatalifecycle
management) STILL isn’t in place for most
enterprises.
Many enterprises are relying on one person
whoknowseverylineofcode.Butwhathap-
pens if that person is out sick, on holiday, or
leaves the company entirely? What happens
if a rewrite, change or urgent recovery is
needed? Simple put —scripting is not scal-
able or sustainable.
What is your process for recovering an application after an outage?

18. So, what is the best way to
protect your workloads and
data in AWS cloud?
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