Survey Finds Enterprise Concerned About Mass Data Fragmentation

Cohesity, of the UK, commissioned independent market research company Vanson Bourne to conduct a quantitative research studyinto mass data fragmentation, the impact it is having on organizations and the benefits which can be achieved by solving it. The research was carried out in early 2019. Nine hundred senior IT decision makers were interviewed, from the US (250), the UK (250), France (100), Germany (100), Australia (100) and Japan (100). Respondents were from organizations with 1,000 employees or more, from a variety of private or public sectors with a focus on financial services, healthcare, life sciences, media and entertainment, technology and the public sector.

Well, we can see the survey was broad enough to get almost all major enterprise groups included. So, what did they think?

Ninety-one percent of respondents said that they believed the cloud would simplify operations, increase agility, reduce costs and provide greater insights, but many of those hopes haven't come to fruition. About a third (32%) of respondents' organizations have achieved all of the public cloud benefits they expected they would, which leaves the remaining two thirds only achieving some (58%) or a few (10%) of the expected benefits.

The same percentage of those disappointed (91%) specify mass data fragmentation as the cause. But 98% expect that their organization's public cloud-based storage will increase by 93% on average between 2018 and the end of 2019. It seems cloud use will be going forward even if there are current disappointments.

Mass data fragmentation means a proliferation of data that is spread across myriad different locations, infrastructure silos and management systems that prevents organizations from fully utilizing its value. It includes but is not exclusive to public cloud environments.

About half (44%) of the respondents use three to four point products to manage their data (backups, archives, files, test/dev copies) across public clouds today, while nearly one fifth (17%) are using as many as five to six separate solutions. Respondents expressed their concerns in the report about using multiple products to move data between on-premises and public cloud environments if those products don't integrate. Fifty-eight percent are concerned about security, 46% worry about costs, and 42% are concerned about compliance. There may also be a functional disconnect between senior management and IT. Eighty-eight percent of respondents say that their IT teams have been given a mandate to move to the public cloud by senior management. However, nearly half of those respondents (41%) say they are struggling to come up with a strategy that effectively uses the public cloud to the complete benefit of the organization.

"Given the amount of data organizations accumulate on a daily basis, it's almost inevitable that without proper management, organizations were going to lose control of their data," said Katie Noyce, research manager of Vanson Bourne. "This problem is now impacting organizations' ability to make the best use of the public cloud. Over nine in ten (91%) of those who feel the promise of this service hasn't been realized attribute this failure to the fact that their data is greatly fragmented. It seems like a no-brainer that organizations need to get a hold on their data, before it gets a hold on them."

— Larry Loeb has written for many of the last century's major "dead tree" computer magazines, having been, among other things, a consulting editor for BYTE magazine and senior editor for the launch of WebWeek.