Updated Q4 2010: Market Overview: Backup Software-As-A-Service

It's been almost two years since we last produced this report, and during that time the vendor landscape has changed considerably; however, one constant remains true: Backup is a struggle for both enterprises and small and medium-size businesses (SMBs). It's a complex ecosystem of software, networks, servers, disk appliances, and, yes, tape systems still. Many firms continue to have difficulty completing backups in the time available, and a large number of backups fail or complete with errors. In addition, there are gaps in backup coverage. Most SMBs and enterprises still fail to protect corporate PCs, and enterprises often don't protect servers at remote and branch offices. Given the continued headaches associated with backup and the gaps in coverage, many firms are considering an online backup service to either supplement or replace their current infrastructure. These solutions have been traditionally called backup software-as-a-service, but they're increasingly known as online backup or cloud backup.