ClearSky Data, provider of on-demand primary storage with built-in offsite backup and DR as a service, today announced the results of its recent survey on the state of disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). The findings reflect the experiences of more than 500 senior-level IT leaders. While respondents were enthusiastic about the potential for DRaaS to improve data protection strategies under limited budgets, the majority have no plans to move to a cloud-only approach, making a strong case for hybrid DR.

ClearSky's survey asked leaders in a range of industries where they store their data, how often they test their DR strategies, what level of data growth they expect this year and more. The findings confirm data protection remains a critical concern for enterprise IT leaders, who want efficient ways to protect all their data and remain operational in the event of disasters. However, despite cloud advances, 51 percent of respondents said they have no plans to move to cloud-only approaches. About the same number reported they are deployed in hybrid models today.

The survey feedback also revealed:

• Two-thirds of respondents still maintain physical secondary data centers.
• Forty-one percent of participants expect data to grow between 20 and 40 percent this year.
• Forty percent of annual data growth is driven by retention policies.
• Seventy percent of participants perform DR testing once per year or less.

"This survey data raises a key question about how more IT teams can gain access to the cloud for DR in a way that makes sense," said Ellen Rubin, CEO and co-founder of ClearSky Data. "Companies are getting stuck trying to copy and store their way out of their data protection and DR challenges, which exacerbates the problems. Companies can demand better by deploying solutions with built-in backup and DR."

Hybrid data protection and DR strategies bridge the on-prem reality described by survey respondents with the benefits of the cloud companies want: focus, speed, agility and cost reduction. ClearSky Data provides on-demand backup and DR with primary storage as a single service. Users can eliminate secondary data centers, cut replication and stop doing backup, while automatically protecting data offsite and for DR. Users can scale up or down on demand, paying for a single, durable copy of data that is accessible from anywhere - on-prem or in the cloud.

Read the complete results of the ClearSky Data survey in this SlideShare, "500 IT leaders weigh in on the state of DRaaS."