By 2028, 75 per cent of large companies will be adopting BaaS, says Gartner

By 2028, 75 per cent of companies will consider backing up SaaS applications to be an essential priority due to the risk of IT outages, predicts Gartner.

SaaS-based applications will become the main choice for upgrades and new implementations. The information produced by this software is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sets of essential corporate data over the next five years. According to Gartner’s latest projection, global investments in SaaS for end users are expected to reach $247.2 billion this year and almost $300 billion by 2025.

With the growing dependence on SaaS technologies, it is crucial to ensure the protection and recovery of these data sets. Due to the vulnerability of this data to errors, cyber attacks and problems with suppliers, robust backup solutions are considered indispensable. The integration of Backup as a Service (BaaS) is fundamental to protecting workloads in the cloud and maintaining continuity of operations.

It is also important for companies to understand the shared data responsibility model of SaaS applications and to evaluate the suppliers’ data protection measures. If they are deemed inadequate, third-party solutions should be evaluated to ensure comprehensive data protection. By 2028, 75 per cent of large companies are expected to adopt BaaS alongside on-premise tools.

IDC predicts that by 2025, 55% of organisations will adopt a cloud-centric data protection strategy. This means that while organisations will need to protect workloads throughout the company, they will do so using cloud principles and technologies that offer high degrees of agility and better service level agreements (SLAs). This is why backup as a service (BaaS) is one of the fastest growing data protection markets.

BaaS involves a cloud service provider (SP) setting up the backup infrastructure (hardware and software) and providing the operational support needed to keep it running.

BaaS solutions can range from simpler do-it-yourself options, where the customer provides operational labour, to more complete service options, where the cloud SP provides most of the operational labour. However, the most suitable type of solution varies according to each user’s needs.

BaaS can relieve IT teams of the need to deploy and manage backup infrastructure by transferring these systems and tasks to a qualified cloud SP. The BaaS infrastructure is kept up-to-date by the provider, which means that organisations no longer have to worry about patch management, software updates, component interoperability or opening up vulnerabilities due to outdated software.

BaaS solutions are almost universally sold as subscriptions. As the backup service is inherently cloud-based, it offers savings, flexibility and scale. Subscriptions can be short-term, if necessary, or long-term, to guarantee better prices and conditions.

Needs differ from one company to another and the configuration and management of a cloud backup solution can range from simple to complex. A cloud managed service provider can analyse your situation and develop a strategy that meets your organisation’s specific needs. By managing your backups, they will also be able to deal with additional workloads, compliance changes and security issues more quickly. Partnering with an experienced service provider can also help deal with disaster recovery planning, bringing more benefits to your organisation.

What’s more, BaaS solutions can be co-ordinated with other data protection products, such as Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Archive as a Service (AaaS), to achieve greater value leverage. The existence of common functionality between these products simplifies and gives greater assurance of data recovery in all potential loss events.

Considering a cloud-based BaaS solution can be more than just a cost-effective option to help protect your company – it can also help you recover your data more quickly in the event of an emergency. Even when other data storage sources are lost or no longer available, the cloud-based replication available in a BaaS solution means that the time needed to synchronise and restore your data during an outage is greatly reduced and is always available.

Moving your backups to a service provider doesn’t mean giving up visibility or control, but it can mean giving limited internal resources the time they need to deal with day-to-day operations and strategic initiatives. BaaS offers a ‘set it and forget it’ solution that gives your organisation end-to-end encryption and fast access to your backups whenever needed.