Backup and recovery vendor, Asigra, claims SaaS backup is critical as the market looks set to hit US $232 billion by 2024. As companies increasingly migrate to the cloud, the amount of data in these applications is soaring. Asigra says that safeguarding that data is now paramount.
Eric Simmons, CEO, Asigra, said, “SaaS applications are more than just tools; they’re the backbone of the modern enterprise. As the market continues its upward trajectory, businesses cannot afford to be complacent about the safety and availability of their data in these applications.
“Most SaaS apps follow the shared responsibility model where the SaaS customer is responsible for the protection of their own data and our mission is to equip businesses with sophisticated, reliable backup solutions, ensuring that their data is protected, compliant, and recoverable — no matter where it resides.”
What is driving the SaaS market growth?
Asigra has highlighted three key drivers for the growth of the SaaS market. They are:
- Rapid Digital Transformation: The pandemic-induced shift towards remote work and digital operations has accelerated the adoption of SaaS applications across industries.
- Cost Efficiency: The subscription-based model of SaaS applications allows businesses to optimize operational costs, driving its popularity.
- Scalability & Flexibility: SaaS solutions offer businesses the flexibility to scale up or down based on demand, catering to both SMEs and large enterprises.
Even before the pandemic, these were all drivers for SaaS growth. What the pandemic did was focus the minds of organisations around greater mobility and work from home. For many organisations moving away from their on-premises apps that couldn’t scale to accommodate remote working was a must.
What many organisations, especially SMEs, have overlooked, is how SaaS operates when it comes to data. They fail to understand the separation of the applications from the data. While the former is the responsibility of the app and platform provider, data remains the responsibility of the company.
Asigra points out that the protection of SaaS application data is down to the customer. It is not just about backing up and protecting the data. Security of the data also remains the responsibility of the organisation, as does regulatory compliance.
The solution, according to Asigra, is to invest in parallel solutions. It goes on to say it should include “a robust backup and recovery platform.” One reason for that, says Asigra, is that it, “is essential to counter threats like ransomware, accidental data deletions, and system outages.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
A lack of understanding of the shared responsibility model is nothing new. We’ve heard this for over a decade, and it has been the cause of lost data and security breaches. That Asigra is still having to say it shows how little notice people are taking of it. It also shows how poor a job the cloud platforms are doing in articulating this to customers, especially SMEs.
For many companies, they should have identified weaknesses in their backup and recovery model some time ago. They should know that they are not backing up data inside SaaS apps. If they don’t, it raises questions about data governance and the competence of the IT organisation.
If the organisation moved to the cloud through a service provider, they need to verify with them that data is properly protected.
