Skip to content
Tiatra, LLCTiatra, LLC
Tiatra, LLC
Information Technology Solutions for Washington, DC Government Agencies
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact
 
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Services
    • IT Engineering and Support
    • Software Development
    • Information Assurance and Testing
    • Project and Program Management
  • Clients & Partners
  • Careers
  • News
  • Contact

CIOs eye SaaS backup plans post-CrowdStrike

If the CrowdStrike outage underscored anything for CIOs, it’s that modern enterprises are dependent on a growing number of interconnected systems, any one of which can cripple business operations beyond CIOs’ control.

As a result, software supply chains and vendor risk management are becoming ever more vital (and frequent) conversations in the C-suite today, as companies seek to reduce their exposure to outages and the business continuity issues of key vendors their businesses depend on.

One such area that’s getting more thought today is SaaS backup and recovery, something many CIOs have to date taken for granted, leaving it to their SaaS vendors to not only deliver better than five-nines uptime but also be the sole entities backing up and recovering SaaS-siloed data that is increasingly vital to companies’ data-driven operations.

“We experienced the impact of one of our SaaS providers, OpCon, not having a solid DR [disaster recovery] plan during the MS Azure Central Region outage,” says Gary Jeter, CTO of TruStone Financial. “The nightly processing jobs were significantly delayed, which has a large impact on our credit union and our members. This happened the same evening as the CrowdStrike incident.”

Jeter, like many IT leaders, is getting more serious about protecting against SaaS mishaps impacting their business.

“We now are paying much more attention to it,” he says. “Although not implemented yet, we will be making it part of our vendor management and selection processes. We also plan on expanding our ERM [enterprise risk management] evaluations to include a more comprehensive SaaS vendor’s DR to determine which platforms we need to ensure have a mitigation strategy.”

Research firm Gartner predicts that, within three years, more than 75% of enterprises will prioritize backup for SaaS applications and the data stored with SaaS providers, up from 15% today.

Increasing demand for SaaS backup insurance — deemed critical for business continuity — comes in the aftermath of the CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage that impacted business globally this summer.

It also reflects the increasing amount of enterprise data stored in SaaS solutions: Enterprise customer SaaS spending globally is projected to grow 20% to total $247.2 billion in 2024 and is forecast to reach nearly $300 billion in 2025, according to Gartner.

Vendor risk management takes center stage

For CIOs concerned about protecting SaaS data, Gartner suggests vetting their vendors to ensure data protection and recovery is incorporated into the governance aspect of the SaaS vendor’s operations. CIOs should also verify their SaaS vendors’ ability to recover data from all loss scenarios.

“Many SaaS solutions have some capabilities for backing up customer data, but its primary purpose is not for the direct benefit of the client to restore data from customer-related or -inflicted issues. The vendor backup is for use in resolving vendor-related issues, not necessarily those generated by the customer,” says Michael Hoeck, Gartner analyst and senior director. “A general principal of SaaS applications is the shared data responsibility.”

While data analytics company Mathematica was not directly impacted by the CrowdStrike outage, several of its SaaS providers were affected, including one that is a critical system for Mathematica’s business, says CIO Akira Bell, who was a finalist for MIT’s CIO Leadership Award for 2023.

“We have not started doing our own backups outside of what the SaaS provider is contracted to do, although I would say it is a growing consideration,” Bell says. “As I look at our recovery capabilities, one area of growing concern is our critical SaaS applications. In a supply-chain scenario, our third parties may be the reason we aren’t backed up. An extra layer of redundancy may become critical.”

Integrating backup-as-a-service solutions is necessary for protecting workloads stored on the cloud and ensuring operational continuity, Gartner maintains. Although some SaaS providers offer basic backup services at no to little cost, CIOs are exploring more comprehensive ways to protect their data assets in SaaS and ensure they have a disaster recovery method ready to go should their SaaS solutions fail, Gartner analysts claim.

“Not every SaaS has backup capabilities for their own product, and with many of the ones that do, those native backup capabilities are rudimentary,” says Johnny Yu, who leads IDC’s SaaS backup research. “Salesforce has some sort of rudimentary backup feature as well, though I don’t believe they charge extra for it.”

Microsoft 365, for example, natively backs up data on a regular basis and users can roll back to these backups, but there are limitations. For example, they can’t restore individual files, emails, or Teams conversations, Yu explains. 

“The main takeaway is every SaaS [vendor] handles customer data protection differently, and whether that data is even protected at all is never a given,” Yu says. “The only guarantees SaaS vendors are generally responsible for have to do with the uptime and accessibility of their software.”

Backup-as-a-service gains traction

IDC’s Yu backs up Gartner’s assertion that enterprise customers are now exploring vendors that offer “backup-as-a-service,” in which the solution providers package data protection in such a way that customers don’t have to buy or manage their own backup infrastructure. 

Most data protection vendors sell a BaaS version of their product, including Veeam, Commvault, and Cohesity, Yu says, while others such as Druva, Backblaze, and Carbonite could be considered more “specialized” in BaaS.

CIOs who expect this protection out of the box are at risk. 

Tom Barnett, CIDO at Baptist Memorial Health Care in Memphis, knows well the risks but he — like other IT leaders who hear business executives ask, “Why do we need backup if data is in the cloud” — is in a bind.

“This is something that has been on our radar and is somewhat difficult to make the case for funding with,” says Barnett. “It takes a lot of education and an executive-level discussion to align this with enterprise risk management, leveraging audit findings, and matching those up against data retention policies — all of which can be tedious and time consuming.”

Patty Patria, CIO at Babson College, which uses Microsoft Copilot for administrative tasks and efficiencies for students, is comfortable she has what she needs at the present time.

“It depends on the SaaS app and level of risk around that content and or any regulatory requirements that organization might have,” Patria says. “Most SaaS apps are already backed up by the vendor, and most CIOs don’t engage in additional backups, but there are some use cases for it.”

To put organizations like Babson’s reliance on Microsoft into perspective, IDC’s Yu says Microsoft offers Microsoft 365 Backup as a service, with a retention period of up to 1 year, restore points as small as every 10 minutes (instead of every 12 hours), and granular restore of mail, contact info, calendar items, as well as a handful of other features for $0.15 per GB per month for all data it protects.


Read More from This Article: CIOs eye SaaS backup plans post-CrowdStrike
Source: News

Category: NewsSeptember 10, 2024
Tags: art

Post navigation

PreviousPrevious post:Oracle inks deal with AWS to offer database servicesNextNext post:7 early warning signs of a dying IT project

Related posts

Barb Wixom and MIT CISR on managing data like a product
May 30, 2025
Avery Dennison takes culture-first approach to AI transformation
May 30, 2025
The agentic AI assist Stanford University cancer care staff needed
May 30, 2025
Los desafíos de la era de la ‘IA en todas partes’, a fondo en Data & AI Summit 2025
May 30, 2025
“AI 비서가 팀 단위로 지원하는 효과”···퍼플렉시티, AI 프로젝트 10분 완성 도구 ‘랩스’ 출시
May 30, 2025
“ROI는 어디에?” AI 도입을 재고하게 만드는 실패 사례
May 30, 2025
Recent Posts
  • Barb Wixom and MIT CISR on managing data like a product
  • Avery Dennison takes culture-first approach to AI transformation
  • The agentic AI assist Stanford University cancer care staff needed
  • Los desafíos de la era de la ‘IA en todas partes’, a fondo en Data & AI Summit 2025
  • “AI 비서가 팀 단위로 지원하는 효과”···퍼플렉시티, AI 프로젝트 10분 완성 도구 ‘랩스’ 출시
Recent Comments
    Archives
    • May 2025
    • April 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • January 2025
    • December 2024
    • November 2024
    • October 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • July 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • March 2024
    • February 2024
    • January 2024
    • December 2023
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • September 2023
    • August 2023
    • July 2023
    • June 2023
    • May 2023
    • April 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • October 2022
    • September 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    Categories
    • News
    Meta
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
    Tiatra LLC.

    Tiatra, LLC, based in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, proudly serves federal government agencies, organizations that work with the government and other commercial businesses and organizations. Tiatra specializes in a broad range of information technology (IT) development and management services incorporating solid engineering, attention to client needs, and meeting or exceeding any security parameters required. Our small yet innovative company is structured with a full complement of the necessary technical experts, working with hands-on management, to provide a high level of service and competitive pricing for your systems and engineering requirements.

    Find us on:

    FacebookTwitterLinkedin

    Submitclear

    Tiatra, LLC
    Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.