Subscribe

What are the top priorities for businesses post-COVID-19?

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 09 Feb 2021
Gerhard Fourie
Gerhard Fourie

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the adoption of cloud technologies. With it,  protecting data in the cloud and disaster recovery (DR) emerged as critical business priorities. 

This is according to Gerhard Fourie, district channel manager for Commvault SA, commenting on the findings of the Commvault 2020 cloud data protection survey

It revealed that DR preparedness is the top data protection priority during, and as a result of, the global pandemic. He said the initial survey results in May had 80% of businesses listing this as their most important consideration. With no end in sight to the pandemic, this number increased to 89% when the survey was repeated in October.

The pandemic highlighted the importance of DR and the need for businesses to recover data fast from any location, irrespective of whether users are working from home, from an office or anywhere in between. “Data and workloads need to be restored quickly to ensure businesses remain up and running in an ‘always on’ digital world.”

Held to ransom

The need to protect businesses from ransomware became even more apparent than before.  At first, this was listed as a priority by 61% of businesses, but by October, 83% identified preventing ransomware as a top concern. In reality, the shift toward a remote workforce and the speed at which cloud solutions were adopted exposed business systems more than ever, said Fourie.

Ransomware is an evolving threat and preventing this scourge should be a top priority and a central component of data management, regardless of whether the data is stored in the cloud, on premises or in a hybrid environment. Encrypted backups and rapid data recovery are critical to effectively dealing with ransomware attacks, Fourie added.

Digital transformation, cloud

Unsurprisingly, quicker digital transformation and increased cloud adoption were also listed as priorities for business as a result of the pandemic. The initial survey revealed that 49% of businesses surveyed reported this as a priority, and by October the number remained high at 47%.

The move to the cloud gained traction over the course of the year, with the number rising from 29% in May to 34% in October. Cloud-based solutions and workloads emerged as a crucial enabler,  allowing businesses to transform rapidly and deliver the agility and flexibility they needed to survive, concluded Fourie.

Share