More Singapore SMBs securing data with virtualization

81% of the companies surveyed reported improved preparedness against acts of god and other disasters with server virtualization.

In a news release, Symantec Corp. announced the findings of its 2012 SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, which discovered that disaster preparedness is closely connected with small and medium sized businesses’ adoption of technologies like virtualization, cloud computing, and mobility.

The survey also revealed how willing SMBs are in adopting these technologies, often with improved disaster preparedness as a goal, and how the move is paying off for them. Out of 2,053 organizations that were surveyed globally, 100 were from Singapore.

“Singapore SMBs are turning to new technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing and mobility to drive productivity and improve their competitive edge. More importantly, they want to strengthen their ability to recover from unexpected disasters while protecting the information that their business depends on,” said Tan Yuh Woei, country director, Singapore, Symantec.

“Given that SMBs often have to juggle between multiple priorities with very limited resources, it is encouraging that the adoption of these technologies, combined with a sound plan and comprehensive security and data protection solutions, can empower SMBs to be better prepared for potential disasters while enhancing business processes and efficiency.”

Survey Highlights

Virtualization, cloud and mobility are gaining SMB traction. It’s not just large businesses looking to cutting-edge technology, but a significant number of SMBs are adopting these innovations as well. Around 44 percent are now taking advantage of mobile devices for business use. Virtualization is also on the radar of SMBs, with 40 percent either currently deploying or already benefitting from server virtualization. More popular still is cloud computing, with 55 percent deploying public clouds and a similar number at 58 percent are implementing private clouds.

The effect of disaster preparedness is top of mind for SMBs. In many cases, a desire to improve their disaster preparedness played a part in adopting these emerging technologies. In the case of private cloud computing, 61 percent reported that disaster preparedness influenced their decision, similar to the 60 and 64 percent who said it affected their commitment to public cloud adoption and mobility respectively. This held true with server virtualization as well, with disaster preparedness influencing the decision 53 percent of the time.

Early adopters are enjoying better disaster preparedness. Whether by design or not, implementing these initiatives has improved the disaster preparedness of most of the survey respondents, particularly in the case of server virtualization – 81 percent reported that their disaster preparedness improved with virtualization. In the case of private and public cloud, they also saw improvement, according to 58 percent and 55 percent, respectively. Mobility also increased their disaster preparedness 52 percent of the time.

Recommendations

The survey shows the importance of embracing innovation to better respond to challenges. In order for businesses to best take advantage of this opportunity to improve disaster preparedness, Symantec recommends taking the following actions:

First, to start planning now and develop a disaster preparedness plan. Evaluate how strategic technologies such as mobile, virtualization and cloud can help.

Second, implement strategic technologies. Adopt integrated cloud backup for offsite storage and disaster recovery, and automated physical to virtual backup conversion so it's easy to recover the physical system from a virtual machine in case of a server failure.

Third, protect the information. Use comprehensive security and backup solutions to protect physical, virtual and mobile systems. Businesses may opt to backup to the cloud.

Lastly, review and test disaster the preparedness within the company. This should be completed at least once a quarter to ensure company's security and backup needs.