by Lorita Ba

Every now and then, we at TwinStrata like to take a pulse of the industry. While we have conversations every day with prospective and current customers, partners and industry analysts, it’s good to pop up from those conversations to see what the rest of the world is thinking.

And so TwinStrata’s Cloud Storage Adoption survey was born. You may recall the first iteration of that survey, the results of which we released in June of last year, shortly after the Cloud Computing Expo. We continued to collect survey responses throughout the second half of 2012,  and today we released an update of those findings.

We knew we would be getting a relatively cloud-savvy group – our respondent pool was predisposed toward cloud computing – but we figured that this group would give us some unique insights into the attitudes, experiences and direction of the industry.

So what did we learn?

In June 2012, we found, “5 out of 6 respondents indicated that they were either already using or plan to use cloud storage in some capacity – making it the most widely planned cloud initiative (even more than software as a service).”

Today, that number is 9 out of 10.


Delegates enjoying the busy TwinStrata booth at a recent Cloud Expo

A whopping 80% of current cloud storage users claim that they can recover their data in less than 24 hours, with nearly a quarter of cloud storage users estimating instantaneous recovery. Meanwhile a shocking one in six respondents who do not use cloud storage estimated that it would take more than a week to recover their data in the event of a disaster.

More than a week. Can your business sustain that kind of delay?

80% of cloud storage users can recover their data in less than 24 hours in the event of a disaster. One in six respondents who do not currently use cloud storage estimate that it would take more than a week.

Today’s findings demonstrate a critical mass that’s forming around cloud storage. Although other cloud computing technologies like software as a service has experienced greater adoption to date, more and more organizations have recognized that cloud storage delivers a simple, practical and cost-effective solution to problems such as exponentially increasing data growth, disaster recovery and out-of-control costs. Want more proof? 70% of cloud storage users intend to expand their use of cloud storage. It’s clear that the time for cloud storage is now.

There’s a lot more in the report, and you can download a full copy of it here.

We’ll continue to keep the survey open, collect responses and report back on the results.

In the meantime, if you want to find out more about how organizations are using cloud storage to solve the problems cited below, please register for our January 31st webinar, Cloud Storage in Action: Cost Savings, Lower Maintenance and Improved Disaster Recovery.