New industry report finds EMC backup and recovery customers achieved payback within seven months

The new IDC study  quantifies the real-world business impact of EMC backup and recovery solutions, including EMC Data Domain and Avamar. A majority of the customers had multiple EMC backup products, proving the value of the the company’s integrated portfolio. The results revealed that each next-generation backup and recovery solution provided significant business benefits relating to cost and time savings. 

Specifically, customers reported data restore times were reduced by 88%, from 17 to 2 hours on average. Backup window times also decreased by more than 72%, from  an average of 11 hours to 3 hours. Furthermore, customers avoided an average of €1.4 million in tape upgrade, media and maintenance costs over a three year period by either eliminating or dramatically reducing their reliance on tape in the backup process. 

The whitepaper -  “Generating Proven Business Value with EMC Next-Generation Backup and Recovery” - included  results from ten companies across EMEA, representing a wide number of industries and company sizes. Interviewed by IDC researchers, respondents were asked to disclose internal IT process, infrastructure, and cost information covering the period before, during and after the deployment of EMC backup solutions. Researchers were then able to calculate the payback period and ROI for the deployed products, taking into account cost of purchase, setup and integration as well as on-going software fees and IT maintenance time. Factors such as improved management of space, gains in productivity, availability and efficiency, in addition to cost reduction were all included in the final ROI analysis. 

Mark Hunt, IS Support Engineer, Ordnance Survey “Over the past three years we’ve experienced a 900 per cent rise in data. This exponential jump meant we were spending as much as 25 hours a week completing just administration on the ageing tape infrastructure. Realising that tape wasn't a viable strategy for Ordnance Survey, we implemented Data Domain systems for both our primary and offsite back up centres. As a result of the systems we are using, our second data centre is now a lights out site with no admin time at all for backups. In some cases the deployments cut our backup window from 20 hours to less than two hours and restore performance times went from several hours to a number of minutes. " 

Kelly Ferguson, Director of EMEA Marketing, EMC Backup Recovery Systems Division “The IDC study shows quantifiable business results through backup modernization.  In today’s economic environment, a solution that pays for itself in only 7 months should be compelling not only to the IT department but also to the executive staff as a strategic business initiative.  Taking cost out of backup operations is one thing.  What this study also shows is a direct benefit to the business users as a result of backup transformation.  While the natural reaction in a time of economic uncertainty is to cut spending, this study shows that next generation backup and recovery is a wise investment to ensure that organizations’ critical assets – data and applications – are protected and quickly recoverable.”