Even with the increasing cloud adoption rate, many still feel that cloud-based backups are not as secure as on-premises alternatives and can lead to unpredictable costs. With its physical presence, on-premises backup might seem more secure or customizable when compared to cloud backups. However, this is not the case. The DIY model of on-premises backups is a cost and management headache. With so much marketing jargon, it’s easy to get caught up in the myths and misconceptions of backing up data to the cloud and miss out on its advantages. Cloud-based backup-as-a-service (BaaS) is among the most secure and cost-effective options available.
In this myth-busting blog, we’ll explore 5 of the most popular misconceptions about cloud-based backup, help you understand the pain points of on-premises backup, and take a deeper dive into the advantages of Druva’s cloud-first approach.
Myth 1: Cloud-based backups are less secure or reliable than what I could build for myself
When you have to build, manage, secure, update, refresh, repair, scale, and configure the network, servers, storage, and software yourself, you certainly have a lot of control… and juggle. The bottom line is this — non-SaaS solutions are “secure by implementation,” meaning you are on your own to configure the security of your environment, as well as stay up to date with every patch.
With a DIY approach, it is the full responsibility of you and your admins to:
Manage the risk of configuring your infrastructure security, including validating multiple add-on products and/or third-party vendors for standard security capabilities (i.e. immutable storage).
Monitor and analyze security alerts and work to reduce “alert fatigue” to avoid chasing illegitimate threats across applications and environments.
Accept the risk of any Windows-based solutions (i.e. Veeam) which have been fraught with several CVEs and continue to be a popular target for hackers due to widespread use and less stringent security practices.
Accept that legacy backup servers and appliances are single points of failure and sit your attack surface (visible targets!). If you lose the backup server, which runs in the production environment, you lose all of your workloads.
Manually operate the sandbox environment for testing and analysis following a threat event, including the operational overhead associated with management, planning, and manual processes for success (i.e. disconnecting network cards).
Druva’s 100% SaaS solution is “secure by design” which means it’s built from the ground up with security, and fully managed optimizations included at no additional cost. Experts rigorously design and continuously harden systems with vulnerability scans, common vulnerabilities and exposure (CVE) patching, and regular penetration testing. Druva’s SecOps team collaborates with customers on security incident playbooks and actively participates in remediation efforts. The solution provides Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for backup with 24x7 monitoring, anomaly detection, and proactive customer notification to address threats promptly. Additionally, it includes cross-region backup with three copies, end-to-end air-gapped, immutable, and encrypted. Furthermore, fully automated and orchestrated sandbox recovery allows users to certify the cleanliness of recovery points before initiating recovery operations.
Myth 2: The costs of cloud backups are unpredictable and often more expensive
“Build it yourself” data protection will cost you more, every time. YOU manage storage, computing, and software, at a higher TCO than cloud.
When you manage the solution you will need to:
Spend time on effort-intensive tasks PER workload. This includes infrastructure design, procurement, solution build, deployment, security hardening, maintenance, and management. All workloads, clouds, and/or sites.
Identify and evaluate additional capabilities and services to complete the solution
Want cloud? You need to build/manage the compute/storage yourself or evaluate cloud service providers to do it.
Want security? You need to source additional, but standard, capabilities like immutable storage. It is not secure by design.
Want capacity efficiency? You need to source a dedupe beyond VMware and storage tiering for cold data.
Take the risk of sourcing, training, and retaining technical talent to manage it all. The learning curve can be steep and time-consuming to configure to best practices.
Druva not only eliminates the need for purchasing, managing, hardening, or maintaining hardware or software but also offers significant cost savings of up to 40% compared to legacy solutions like Veeam. Its cloud-native design, continuously optimized for scale, capacity efficiency, and security, ensures efficient resource utilization without the requirement of static infrastructure both on-prem and in the cloud. With global deduplication and multi-tier storage, Druva provides inclusive services supporting the entire data protection lifecycle, resulting in substantial cost-saving efficiencies over solutions on-premises.
Myth 3: On-premises apps and data require an on-premises backup solution
On-premises products are disparate services that are siloed and can’t be easily unified. Each typically requires its own console, infrastructure, and training. The result? Data protection takes longer. To put this into perspective:
Onboarding of new applications can take days, weeks, or longer — depending on the state of supporting infrastructure.
You may have to manage a different user interface for each workload — VMware, Azure, AWS, Microsoft 365, etc. — and each requires its own VM appliance (which also needs to be managed).
In addition to the time and cost overhead associated with management, basic maintenance can result in downtime. New software update? You may need to stop/pause backups and reboot your environment. Configuring a new workload? Not all services benefit from auto-configuration. Buyer beware.
Ultimately, the time and effort required may leave customers asking: Does my data protection solution work for me, or do I work for it?
Fact — Workloads that have been traditionally managed on-premises can be easily migrated to the cloud. Cloud solutions seamlessly integrate with hybrid environments, accommodating enterprises with data living on-premises and in the cloud. This flexibility enables data migration, sharing, and processing across platforms. Druva’s 100% SaaS simplicity gives you a data protection advantage — you deploy across the full environment with:
Simplified and unified management experience, from a single console, across data centers, SaaS apps, and cloud workloads.
Automated workflows and configuration for fast deployment and an adaptive AI customer support experience (Dru AI).
Instant, zero-touch, self-service onboarding that can have your application protected in minutes, not hours or days.
A fully managed and maintained solution for easy resource scaling, patching, and upgrades; zero downtime required.
Myth 4: My environment is too big/complex for a cloud-based solution
Choosing a platform today means planning for the needs of tomorrow. Each on-premises deployment is unique, with no economies of scale to improve the customer experience, or to prevent known security threats from impacting the business. Customers with many workloads will need to manage many consoles, VM instances, and/or infrastructure. Scaling new workloads becomes a challenge and adding resources to protect growing workloads requires ongoing capacity planning, waiting, and downtime.
Unique pricing can create extreme variability per customer, per workload (i.e. Veeam’s licensing may be user-based for VMware, but capacity-based for NAS). Also, minimums may apply per instance and user licensing packs, and if you expand and buy new licensing before contract expiration, you may end up with different renewal dates (not co-termed).
You may have a big, complex environment, but we at Druva believe it’s time you have some simplicity in your life! Druva supports multiple platforms and endpoints, spanning cloud applications, VMs, and physical servers — and does it all with ONE common cloud platform. No infrastructure to worry about means your life just gets a little easier when it comes to data protection!
Global access, availability, and unified customer experience.
On-demand 24x7 resource scale and unlimited flexibility.
Simple, transparent, and efficient consumption-based pricing (all-inclusive) across workloads and locations.
Scale up OR down seamlessly to meet the demand of new workloads, growth, and never have to worry about performance or over/under provisioning.
Myth 5: Cloud storage results in vendor lock-in
On-premises data protection, while potentially providing a sense of control and security over your environment, can inadvertently lead to vendor lock-in. Potential examples include hardware dependencies for compatibility with existing infrastructure, difficult software licensing, integration complexities, difficulties with customization and configuration, and others.
Cloud storage actually prevents vendor lock-in with interoperability, open APIs, and tools that enable data integration and migration, data portability, and multi-cloud/hybrid solutions. Mix and match the solutions you need and embrace simplicity — Druva's comprehensive solution enables seamless protection of multi-cloud, device, and on-premises data through a unified platform. By eliminating data silos across multiple workloads, Druva enhances security and operational resilience.
Fact: Your data deserves better than “Build-your-own-adventure” backups!
Druva takes a 100% SaaS-based approach to data protection that removes the challenges of “Do It Yourself” vendors. From just a single platform, you get hybrid, SaaS, and multi-cloud backup, ransomware response and recovery, data governance, endpoint protection and the flexibility of our cloud-native design, built on proven Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Deploy, scale on demand, and pay for only what you use. Unlike competing solutions, there is NEVER any infrastructure to manage and zero maintenance hassles. Druva is set it and forget it — we manage the data and platform so you’re always secure, up-to-date, and ready to recover at a moment’s notice.
Curious to learn more? Register to watch our on-demand webinar and take a full deep dive into debunking the myths of cloud backup.