Your data are growing exponentially

If you find yourself now in a situation where you have to deal with an explosion in the volume of your business data, you are not alone. The accelerating pace of data creation, accumulation, and diffusion is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon among companies throughout the world today. Data are growing exponentially due to widespread use of the Internet, email, and media-rich software. As early as 2002, International Data Corporation (IDC) projected a dizzying annual data growth rate of 80%.

1MB of data is worth US$10,000

Viewed from a strategic perspective, your data represent the core of your business. You have invested a lot of TIME, MONEY and EFFORT in developing your business data. Contracts, sales records, proposals, accounting records, marketing material, business contacts, emails, and even digital photos taken in important events, etc., make up the bulk of your invaluable business assets, which you cannot afford to lose. Studies have shown that:

	1MB of data is worth approximately US$10,0001.
	Re-building just 20MB of lost data could cost more than US$17,000 and take nearly three weeks to complete2.
	A leaked record may cost you US$180 to rectify3.
	Retrieval of data from a crashed hard drive is often extremely costly, and there is NO GUARANTEE of success1!

Causes of data loss Source: Ontrack survey in 2002

Data loss makes your business suffer

	Your business data go hand in hand with your business operations. The loss of such data, or even their temporary inaccessibility, may threaten your hard-earned competitive position.
	Companies without proactive backup and recovery policies are likely to be OUT OF BUSINESS within 2 years of a major disaster4.
	Loss of business data may ruin your company’s reputation, and may lead to expensive litigation.
	Worst of all, it interrupts your business continuity.

Conventional backup methods are not good enough

Poor “unstructured” conventional backup methodologies, such as tape, CD Rom, and external hard drive, etc., are not good enough because of:

	High failure rates during restoration		Data is not encrypted
	Critical backup failures will not be detected until at the time of restoration		Fixed capacity per unit makes backup job less flexible
	Slow read / write speed		Prone to physical and mechanical damages
	High cost of maintenance and licencing is prohibitive		Prone to be stolen or misplaced