The Symantec 2011 Backups in a Virtual Environment Flash Poll found that more than 30 percent of IT organizations use separate teams to perform backups of their virtual server versus their physical servers. This is problematic, however, as organizations who take this approach are frequently less confident in their backups as well as less satisfied with reliability. Not surprisingly, most (3 of 4) organizations who currently use separate teams are willing to consider consolidating to a single team for backups. The survey was conducted in July 2011, and included 983 IT professionals from 25 countries. The organizations, which included a large range of industries, were enterprises with 1,000 or more employees. Of those surveyed, 28% were C-level employees or business owners, 30% were management focused primarily on strategic issues, 27% were management focused primarily on tactical and operational issues, and 15% were management focused primarily on cybersecurity.

1. Backups in a Virtual Environment
Flash Poll
Global Key Findings

2. Methodology
• Survey Performed by Applied Research
• 983 organizations worldwide
• Enterprises (1,000 employees or more)
• C-level, tactical management,
strategic management,
and cybersecurity management
• Cross-industry
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3. Key Findings
• 31% use separate teams for virtual and physical server backups
• Organizations using separate teams have more trouble. How so?
– Organizations using separate teams are confident in backup and recovery
– Organizations using separate teams less satisfied with reliability
• 3 of 4 using separate teams are open to consolidating to one team
• Why do so many organizations use a single team?
– Easier to staff and train
– Easier to search and recover files from backups
– Easier to troubleshoot and report on backups
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4. Key Findings (continued)
• 37% still track manually or do not know when new or cloned virtual
machines are added or backed up
• Majority (78%) of respondents use the same backup solution for physical
and virtual servers with the following benefits:
– 53% easier to staff and train
– 52% easier to alert, troubleshoot and report
– 51% easier for search and recovery
– 48% simplified licensing and procurement
• For those using multiple products, 77% would consider switching to one
backup solution
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