The high demand for SaaS has led to a surge in interest in Cloud-to-Cloud Backup services. All indications are that this trend will continue in the coming years.

The Rise of SaaS and Cloud Storage

Business customers are increasingly abandoning “boxed software” in favor of SaaS. For several years now, this has been the most popular type of cloud service. According to Gartner, the SaaS market will reach $176 billion this year and $280 billion next year. As the “State of SaaSOps” report shows, companies use an average of 80 IT-sanctioned applications, with 70% of business applications based on SaaS. Cloud-based software has changed the way companies access and store data. The popularity of Cloud-to-Cloud Backup services is rapidly growing on the wave of SaaS.

The largest cloud service providers like to boast about their higher security standards compared to companies using their own IT infrastructure. However, contrary to the marketing boasts of Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, they do not guarantee complete security for users. A famous Polish boxer, Jerzy Kulej, once said, “There’s no one who’s invulnerable to a punch, only those who are poorly hit.”

So, the situation is not as rosy as the marketers working for the “big three” try to convince us, but it’s also not as bad as opponents of cloud services claim. Cyber gangs can occasionally hit giants hard, although these are not common occurrences.

From the perspective of a SaaS user, the most important thing is that service providers only protect their own data and infrastructure, and they do not create backups of files, databases, or virtual machines belonging to customers as part of their standard offer. For example, the Microsoft Azure service agreement states that the provider recommends that users regularly back up their data using “third-party services or applications.” Microsoft, like its largest competitors, operates on a shared responsibility model, which in practice means that it does not create data copies for users, and SaaS users must take care of comprehensive backup and disaster recovery themselves.

Blind Trust Can Be Costly

Entrepreneurs approach cloud service providers’ offers in various ways. Often, you can encounter extreme attitudes – some are exceptionally distrustful of providers and don’t want to move data from their own data center, while others place boundless trust in them. Unfortunately, excessive faith in the operator’s capabilities can result in the loss of valuable information, and in the best-case scenario, expenses related to its recovery. As a study conducted last year by ESG shows, only 13% of respondents realize that when using SaaS, they must take responsibility for data protection themselves. In a similar survey conducted seven years earlier by Aberdeen Research, this percentage was 9%. Although there is some progress, it is not very impressive. C2C backup service providers still have a lot of work to do, both in promoting their products and educating SaaS users.

Data loss for SaaS-managed services can occur as a result of human error, a cyberattack, or errors made during the data synchronization or migration process. IT specialists participating in this year’s Spanning Cloud Apps survey identified three main reasons for using SaaS backups. Half of the respondents consider creating SaaS data backups as a necessary step to minimize the risk of data loss and downtime, nearly 20% do it to protect the company and data from human errors, and 15% want to protect themselves from ransomware attacks.

C2C Backup Minimizes the Risk of Data Loss

What pays off more – taking the risk and not performing regular SaaS backups, and in case of misfortune paying the service provider for data recovery, or using applications or services from external companies? This is a dilemma faced by many companies. The first of the mentioned options is neither cheap nor short. For example, for the Salesforce Data Recovery service, the customer pays a one-time fee of $10,000, and the order fulfillment time is 6 to 8 weeks. Even if the above price is acceptable for large enterprises, the waiting time can give IT managers a heart attack. Some services, such as Microsoft 365, work with tools like OneDrive, providing at least basic protection. However, these are indirect solutions, not guaranteeing the security that most organizations need.

It is therefore not surprising that more and more companies are using C2C backups. Until the end of 2014, the service remained in a deep niche. It became more widely known when EMC (now Dell EMC) acquired Spanning Cloud Apps. Since then, this market segment has begun to develop. Interestingly, three years later, EMC sold this company to the Insight Venture Partners fund. Currently, each of the major players in the data protection market has C2C backup in its portfolio. This is a very interesting proposition for several reasons. Vendors who focus solely on backup and DR have top-class specialists and extensive experience, so their products allow for cheaper and faster backups than, for example, the aforementioned Salesforce or backup services offered by AWS Amazon, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. In addition, they take into account many data loss scenarios. They are also flexible in restoring from cloud-to-cloud backups, as the organization can restore data to various computers, such as laptops or other mobile devices. The fact that C2C backup does not require additional hardware is of great importance.

Cloud backup can be a cheap solution, especially for consumers and small businesses that do not have a large amount of data to protect. Finally, creating backups in the cloud through a service provider is easier to manage, as an external company takes everything upon itself. Nevertheless, this element may be perceived as negative for those customers who want to have complete control over their backups.

C2C Backup or On-Premise Backup?

Not all CIOs are fans of C2C backup services. Opponents point to the costs associated with cloud-based backups. The highest fees are charged for data egress, when data is downloaded or copied from a cloud location. For infrequently used digital assets, these costs can be manageable. However, experts note that while storage costs are relatively low, data recovery fees can often shock CFOs and IT heads. Therefore, it’s crucial to carefully read C2C backup service agreements, especially the fine print. Creating backups from cloud to cloud can also be costly and complex in multi-cloud deployments.

Other challenges in cloud environments include limited bandwidth and latency. Therefore, one way for organizations to gain confidence in C2C backups is to test them.

Businesses can also create SaaS backups on local servers. One advantage of traditional backups compared to C2C is the speed and ease of data recovery. Traditional backups are useful when recovering large amounts of digital assets and in situations where users need quick access to data.

Storware Backup and Recovery’s Cloud-to-Cloud Backup Support

Storware Backup and Recovery is a comprehensive data protection solution that supports various platforms, including cloud environments. Its C2C (Cloud-to-Cloud) backup functionality allows you to protect your data residing in one cloud environment and replicate it to another, providing a robust disaster recovery strategy.

Key features and capabilities of Storware’s C2C backup:

• Platform Support: Storware supports major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP, ensuring compatibility with your existing infrastructure.
• Data Replication: You can seamlessly replicate your data from one cloud environment to another, ensuring redundancy and protection against data loss.
• Scheduling and Automation: Automate backup schedules to streamline your data protection process and reduce manual intervention.
• Granular Control: Exercise fine-grained control over your backup policies, including retention periods, compression levels, and encryption settings.
• Incremental Backups: Optimize backup efficiency by only backing up changes since the last backup, reducing data transfer times.Security: Storware incorporates robust security measures like encryption to protect your sensitive data during transmission and storage.
• Integration: Seamlessly integrate Storware with your existing cloud infrastructure and management tools.

Benefits of using Storware’s C2C backup:

• Enhanced Data Protection: Protect your data against various threats, including accidental deletion, hardware failures, and cyberattacks.
• Disaster Recovery: Ensure business continuity by having a reliable backup of your data in a separate cloud environment.
• Compliance: Meet industry-specific compliance requirements that mandate data protection and redundancy.
• Cost-Effective: Optimize your backup storage and network usage by leveraging cloud-based infrastructure.

By leveraging Storware’s C2C backup capabilities, you can effectively protect your cloud-based data and ensure business resilience.

Storware Backup and Recovery Architecture

Summary

A comprehensive overview of Cloud-to-Cloud Backup (C2C Backup) services and their growing importance in the context of SaaS adoption. Key points include:

• Increasing SaaS adoption: The shift from on-premises software to SaaS has driven the need for C2C Backup solutions.
• Limitations of cloud providers’ security: Despite claims of high security, cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP do not provide full backup and recovery services for customer data.
• Shared responsibility model: The responsibility for data protection primarily lies with the customer, not the cloud provider.
• Benefits of C2C Backup: It offers a cost-effective and managed solution for data protection, addressing challenges like human error, cyberattacks, and data loss.
• Challenges and considerations: Factors such as cost, performance, and data sovereignty can influence the choice between C2C Backup and on-premises solutions.

Key arguments in favor of C2C Backup:

• Cost-effective: Especially for small businesses and consumers with smaller data sets.
• Managed service: Cloud providers handle the backup and recovery process.
• Flexibility: Ability to restore data to various devices.

Potential drawbacks:

• Cost: Data egress fees can be significant.
• Performance: Limited bandwidth and latency can affect recovery times.
• Data sovereignty: Some organizations may have concerns about storing data outside their control.

In conclusion, the text highlights the growing importance of C2C Backup services in today’s cloud-centric environment. While cloud providers offer significant benefits, it’s crucial for organizations to understand their shared responsibility in data protection and to carefully evaluate their options when choosing a C2C Backup solution.

Data has become more essential than ever in businesses, especially as companies shift toward eco-friendly models. However, this greater dependence on data also brings various risks, such as data loss and theft. To meet environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals and sustainability targets, it’s crucial to have strong data backup strategies in place. Thus, organizations should not overlook the need of data backup even as they give increasing focus on these investment ideas.

Effective data backup solutions stop data loss and promote the ESG performance and sustainability of a company in the data-driven environment of today. This article discusses the role of data backup on ESG and sustainability to assist you in harnessing its benefits in achieving your ESG goals.

What is the Role of Data Backup in ESG (Environmental, Social, Corporate Governance)?

ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance) is a framework for evaluating a company’s sustainability and ethical impact. It is a model that allows firms to recognize and evaluate the non-financial hazards and opportunities resulting from daily corporate activities. However, attaining ESG and sustainability depends critically on data backup. In the following sections, we will explore its role in each vital area.

Protecting the Environment through Efficient Data Storage

Data centers and IT systems consume much energy, contributing to an organization’s carbon footprint. However, you can reduce this environmental impact using backup solutions that help to optimize energy use in several ways:

• Energy Efficiency

Efficient backup strategies can minimize the data used, leading to a smaller environmental footprint. Moreover, modern data backup solutions centers employ energy-efficient data tools, such as cloud storage, that use renewable energy. Thus, using these advanced tools also helps to reduce your overall carbon footprint instead of using inefficient methods. Offline storage media, such as magnetic tape and external hard drives, reduce energy use by storing data inactively.

• Efficient Resource Management

Regular data backup can help an organization optimize its data storage practices, allowing it to use resources more efficiently. This includes avoiding redundancy by only storing necessary data and discarding outdated storage practices that consume excessive energy and materials.

• Reduction in Physical Storage Need

Traditional storage methods, such as paper records, take up physical space and materials, leading to deforestation, increased waste, and inefficiency. However, with modern data backup solutions, organizations can reduce the need for physical storage, reduce waste, and conserve natural resources.

• Disaster Recovery

Backing up your data will ensure quick recovery without needing extensive physical resources in the event of a natural disaster or other environmental impact that could lead to data loss. When such events happen, an organization can minimize downtime and the environmental costs of starting from scratch due to data loss.

Enhancing Social Responsibility through Data Backup

Data backup plays a major role in fulfilling an organization’s social responsibility:

• Protection of Sensitive Information

Sensitive information must be protected and safeguarded. Thus, when organizations collect and store sensitive information, including customers’ and employees’ data, they must ensure privacy and security. Using efficient data backups that employ high-standard security solutions ensures maximum protection for such sensitive information, fostering customer trust.

• Regulatory Compliance

When your organization performs regular data backups, it complies with legal and regulatory requirements. Thus, data backup solutions help organizations adhere to data regulations and standards, enabling them to perform their social responsibilities and ensure data integrity.

• Stakeholder Trust

Generally speaking, stakeholders such as partners, customers, workers, and investors want to collaborate with and support an organization prioritizing data security. Therefore, you gain the trust of stakeholders when you use backups to guarantee the availability and integrity of data. Also, a robust backup solution will ensure immediate business continuity after a data disaster, fostering and maintaining trust with stakeholders, especially customers.

• Positive Social Impact

Companies can make positive social impacts when they back up data to protect their digital assets. Many modern businesses operate with these digital assets, including information. Thus, data backup indirectly supports employment and economic stability, which leads to a positive social impact.

Strengthening Corporate Governance through Data Backup

Data backup also plays a crucial role in strengthening an organization’s corporate governance. By implementing robust data backup strategies, organizations can:

• Regulatory Compliance

Many industries are subject to strict data protection that mandates regular backups. Compliance with these regulations shows good governance practices, helping to avoid legal penalties.

• Risk Management

By safeguarding an organization’s data from possible loss brought on by hardware failures, human mistakes, cyberattacks, or natural disasters, data backup solutions assist to control data risk. This is absolutely important since these events can seriously damage the company’s reputation and cause operational slowdown in the lack of a trustworthy backup plan. However, with a robust backup system, you can ensure quick data recovery, preventing loss of customer trust.

• Accountability and Transparency

Consistent data backup practices enhance transparency and accountability. They ensure that accurate records are available for audits, reporting, and stakeholder communications, which is vital for maintaining trust.

• Ethical Data Management

Data backup supports the ethical handling of data, which aligns with the governance principle of integrity and ethical conduct. As a result, an organization can showcase its commitment to protecting stakeholders’ information and ensuring proper data security.

• Decision-Making

An organization can access accurate and complete data with a reliable backup system when needed. Thus, you can make strategic decisions backed by correct information.

How Does Data Backup Foster Sustainability?

Data plays a crucial role in any organization, so data backup enables its sustainability by ensuring continuity, security, and efficiency. The following are some significant ways that data backup supports organizational sustainability:

• Quick Disaster Recovery

Backing up the data of a firm helps to stop human error, cyberattacks, or data loss during natural disasters. Having a good backup plan and disaster recovery strategy guarantees swift recovery in case of data loss, so reducing downtime and ensuring business operations carry on fast.

• Data Security

Preserving data in its original form is crucial, and regular data ensures that you can always restore data to the state it was before a cyber attack or disaster. Thus, an organization can always preserve data integrity and prevent unauthorized alterations.

• Cost Efficiency

Data loss can incur a significant loss for an organization, including lost revenue, legal fees, and damage to reputation. However, backup solutions prevent such loss by enabling quick recovery and optimizing data use and management, leading to long-term cost savings.

• Reputation Management

Improper data management can ruin an organization’s reputation during situations like a data breach or significant downtime after a data disaster. However, with robust data solutions, you can manage your reputation by fostering trust among customers and stakeholders. Quick data recovery also shows that an organization is reliable and trustworthy, ensuring sustainability.

• Operational Efficiency

Regular backups guarantee that data is constantly accessible for the operational requirements of an organization—that is, for analytics, reporting, and decision-making. It also lessens the effects of data loss on a company’s operations so that staff members may continue to be productive long after a data disaster.

Conclusion

Data backup plays a crucial role in ESG. Therefore, it has to be given great attention to guarantee responsible social and environmental effect, the improvement of corporate governance, and a sustainable company environment. Giving data backup top priority in your environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and sustainability plans can assist in safeguarding data assets and support the development of a more ecologically friendly digital future.

Storware places great importance on sustainability. That’s why we’re happy that the technology solutions we create support these values. Learn more from our other articles:

• Backup Under the Sign of Sustainable Development
• Server Virtualization: A Game-Changer For Green IT

備份和災難還原（DR）解決方案通常與可持續發展無關。然而，隨著數據保護格局的轉變，將「綠色技能」與技術知識相結合的能力將變得愈加重要。

至今，決定備份工具選擇的常見因素包括價格、功能、效率（由 RTO 和 RPO 指標衡量），以及與供應商的合作關係。能源效率在目前仍不是主要考慮，但隨著能源價格上升和《企業可持續發展報告指令》（CSRD）等新規範的引入，企業可能會越來越關注這一因素。

根據 Moor Insights & Strategy 的研究，到 2025 年，數據中心的電力消耗將超過全球總用電量的3%。其中，儲存系統將佔數據中心總能耗的 30%。隨著數據量的持續增長，系統啟動、資源遷移、備份和複製等過程也需要更多的能源消耗。

IT 部門面臨來自管理層、員工和客戶的壓力，要求他們提升系統性能、保障安全並降低成本。此外，隨著 CSRD 的推行，約 5 萬家歐洲企業將被要求報告可持續發展進展，這將對 IT 部門的運作產生直接或間接的影響。IT 領域的可持續發展不僅僅意味著減少能源使用，還涉及更加精細的基礎設施設計和合理的數據管理。

減少數據，節省能源

在個人和企業設備上，都充斥著大量無用的數據。對於企業來說，這些無用數據不僅浪費儲存資 源，還增加了成本。為了實現更可持續的數據儲存，企業需要明確認識到其過渡成本，但通過精 心規劃，可以有效克服挑戰。

能耗大的任務如儲存和備份會顯著增加能源消耗，特別是針對老舊或「暗數據」（ Dark Data）。這些數據往往對業務的實際價值甚微，並且對環境也有負面影響。比如影片文件，它們 被認為佔數據中心二氧化碳排放量的 70%。企業可以採用數據刪除和壓縮技術來降低儲存需求， 提升系統性能，同時減少備份時間和能耗。未來，這些技術可能會在可持續數據儲存實踐中發揮 更加重要的作用。

為了更有效管理數據，企業需要加強對儲存環境的可視性，並對不必要的數據進行有針對性的刪 除或存檔。例如，Pure Storage 兩年前推出了一項可持續性評估功能，能夠監控磁盤陣列的能耗 和二氧化碳排放量，並提供減少耗能的建議。

根據 IDC 的數據，90% 的數據中心仍在使用硬盤（HDD），而這些設備在能源效率方面也有進 展。Western Digital 的專家指出，應從整個生命周期的角度來評估硬盤的能源消耗。雖然 SSD 比 HDD 更具能源效率，但 SSD 的生產能耗更高。愛沙尼亞創新公司 Leila Storage 則提出了一 種創新解決方案，可以減少 HDD 的能耗。

Storware 與 Leil Storage 的合作

愛沙尼亞初創公司 Leil Storage 提供了專屬的備份和存檔儲存系統，包括標準版（最大容量 1.5 PB）、進階版（9 PB）、和企業綠色版（最高 15 PB），它們使用 Western Digital 製造的 28TB UltraSMR 磁盤。這些 SMR 磁盤比傳統磁盤具備更高的儲存效率和能源效益。

Leil Storage 計劃推出一個名為 ICE（Infinite Cold Engine）的模組，該模組可在磁盤閒置時自動 斷電，預計可節省多達 43% 的能源消耗。隨著技術的進步，到 2026 年這一數字有望提升至 70%。

Leil Storage 的設備目前已與 Cohesity 和 Rubrik 等公司兼容，並且正在與 Storware 的軟件進行 進一步整合。這一合作將為企業提供更可持續的備份和儲存解決方案。

關於 Storware

Storware 是一家專注於備份軟件的企業，擁有超過十年的行業經驗。Storware 的備份與還原解 決方案適用於各種數據環境，無論是虛擬機、容器、儲存提供商、Microsoft 365 還是運行在本地 或雲端的應用程式，均能提供支援。其小巧的設計使其能夠無縫整合進現有的 IT 基礎設施或企業 級備份方案中，提供極為便捷的備份保護。