Table of Contents
- Summary
- Market Categories and Deployment Types
- Key Criteria Comparison
- GigaOm Radar
- Vendor Insights
- Analysts’ Take
- Methodology
- About GigaOm
- Copyright
1. Summary
Besides a steady adoption of software as a service (SaaS) applications and an increasingly complex regulatory landscape, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) must face the growing threat of ransomware attacks. This poses several challenges to SMBs:
- SaaS applications offer flexibility but often come without built-in data protection capabilities.
- Regulatory requirements are complex and difficult to manage manually.
- Ransomware attacks can have devastating effects on data recovery and sometimes even on future business viability.
SMBs are increasingly looking for solutions with a broad feature set that can address the data protection requirements of hybrid and cloud workloads and SaaS applications, while also protecting against ransomware attacks, and helping them to remain in compliance with regulatory requirements.
From a market standpoint, new startups are disrupting traditional data protection models, while well-established vendors are rethinking their strategy for bridging the gap between legacy and modern hybrid-cloud infrastructures.
The limited resources (labor and capital) of SMBs naturally creates the appetite for backup as a service (BaaS) solutions, which run in the cloud and can be consumed as a service. This type of solution requires a minimal footprint, is quick to configure, simple to operate, and supports a growing number of protected workloads and SaaS applications.
In this market, customers are very diverse, ranging from small businesses to mid-market enterprises, and the scale of the organization doesn’t necessarily imply they have simple requirements. It is therefore a market with a broad scope of use cases, varying requirements, and a wide range of IT budgets.
The market continues to be very active, offering a broad spectrum of data protection solutions, from the simplest to the most complete. Both startups and incumbents are looking at ways to disrupt traditional backup models and differentiate while ensuring they can cover most data protection use cases.
Inside the GigaOm Radar
The GigaOm Radar weighs each vendor’s execution, roadmap, and ability to innovate to plot solutions along two axes, each set as opposing pairs. On the Y axis, Maturity recognizes solution stability, strength of ecosystem, and a conservative stance, while Innovation highlights technical innovation and a more aggressive approach. On the X axis, Feature Play connotes a narrow focus on niche or cutting-edge functionality, while Platform Play displays a broader platform focus and commitment to a comprehensive feature set.
The closer to center a solution sits, the better its execution and value, with top performers occupying the inner Leaders circle. The centermost circle is almost always empty, reserved for highly mature and consolidated markets that lack space for further innovation.
The GigaOm Radar offers a forward-looking assessment, plotting the current and projected position of each solution over a 12- to 18-month window. Arrows indicate travel based on strategy and pace of innovation, with vendors designated as Forward Movers, Fast Movers, or Outperformers based on their rate of progression.
Note that the Radar excludes vendor market share as a metric. The focus is on forward-looking analysis that emphasizes the value of innovation and differentiation over incumbent market position.