"Although mid-sized enterprises tend to evaluate and adopt new technologies at a faster rate than larger organizations, they still face similar data center complexities that are compounded by adopting new initiatives," said Deepak Mohan, senior vice president, Information Management Group at Symantec. "Standardizing on cross-platform solutions that can manage new technologies and automate processes will drive immediate cost reduction and make their jobs easier in the long run."
Study Highlights:
* Mid-sized enterprises are more aggressive and pioneering than either small or large enterprises. They are adopting new technology initiatives such as cloud computing, replication, and deduplication at 11-17 percent higher rates than small or large enterprises.
* Security, backup and recovery, and continuous data protection are the most important initiatives in 2010, ahead of virtualization. Eighty-three percent of enterprises rated security somewhat or absolutely important. Seventy-nine percent said backup and recovery is somewhat/absolutely important and 76 percent rated continuous data protection as one of their top initiatives.
* Staffing and budgets remain tight with half of all enterprises reporting they are somewhat/extremely understaffed. Finding budget and qualified applicants are the biggest recruiting issues. Seventy-six percent of enterprises have the same or more job requisitions open this year.
* There continues to be room for improvement in disaster recovery. One-third of disaster recovery plans are undocumented or need work and important IT components, such as cloud computing, remote office and virtual servers, are often not included. Compounding the issue, almost one-third of enterprises haven't re-evaluated their disaster recovery plan in the last 12 months.
* Virtual machine protection continues to be a focus for enterprises, with 82 percent of enterprises considering virtual-machine technologies in 2010. Respondents cited granular recovery within virtual machine images as the biggest challenge in virtual machine data protection.
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Resources
* Find additional materials in the 2010 Symantec State of the Data Center Online Press Kit * Watch the 2010 Symantec State of the Data Center Video on YouTube * View the 2010 Symantec State of the Data Center Study
* Access the 2010 Symantec State of the Data Center presentation on Slideshare.net * View last year's Symantec State of the Data Center Study
About Storage from Symantec
Symantec helps organizations secure and manage their information-driven world with storage management, email archiving, backup and recovery solutions.
About Symantec
Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world. Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.