The task of backing up critical enterprise data has never been an easy one, and it seems as though the task is only getting more difficult for those in charge of maintaining backup servers. Even though there are currently more ways than ever for businesses to back up their corporate files, the ease of recovering their information after a data failure has never been more complex.

According to Acronis and IDC, this is especially true for small and midsized businesses (SMBs), many of which still struggle to find the correct backup solution for their individual needs. Both companies released the findings of a new study July 9 regarding global backup policies for SMBs, which found that only 65 percent of SMBs globally back up their information to the cloud, compared to 93 percent of SMBs in the United States.

The IDC white paper, “Complexity and Data Growth Driving Small and Medium Environments Toward a New Generation of Data Protection,” found many SMBs outside of the United States remain wary of utilizing cloud and virtual storage for their most sensitive information. According to IDC’s findings, many companies in Western Europe and Asia Pacific were more concerned with security in the cloud than their American counterparts, thus leading to the much smaller overall adoption rate of cloud storage outside of the United States. While only 33 percent of American IT professionals said security was the reason for not using cloud storage, 59 percent of Western European companies and 45 percent of Asian companies responded similarly.

“The findings released today are clear—it’s a different world for IT managers today, and data backup for a small or medium-sized business is more complex than ever,” said Eric Burgener, Research Director, Storage at IDC, in a statement. “Data sizes and types continue to evolve, as does the number of servers and operating systems each company uses. This leads to a host of new challenges IT managers face to make sure they can back up and protect their data and restore operations quickly.”

And with the larger selection of backup options—whether it be local storage, cloud or virtual solutions, many companies say backup is more complex than ever. Nearly 37 percent of total respondents have to back up multiple servers at the same time, while 54 percent of those managing virtual infrastructures have to account for two or more hypervisors, according to the study. The amount of difficulty in managing IT infrastructures was the highest in the United States, United Kingdom and Singapore, with more than 70 percent of all companies in these areas saying their systems are very complex. And with nearly 80 percent of respondents saying downtime costs them upwards of $20,000 per hour, even more pressure is piled onto IT to get systems back up and running within minutes of a failover.

Of course, this study was sponsored by data protection and recovery provider Acronis, which points to its AnyData Engine as a good fit for SMBs looking to protect sensitive data without having to worry about extended downtime.

“Data is more plentiful, complex, and valuable than ever before,” said Serguei Beloussov, CEO at Acronis. “That’s why we pioneered the Acronis AnyData Engine, so organizations of all sizes can easily protect their data and ensure their systems can be restored smoothly, quickly and completely. With downtime costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for some companies, every IT manager should make sure they have a plan in place to restore operations and avoid data loss.”

While there is no general end-all solution for minimizing enterprise failover, it is important that companies have some sort of plan in place in case of an attack or data breach. Seeing as how cloud and virtual backup are still relatively new concepts to the industry, it is understandable how many organizations are not fully invested in the safety and reliability of these products. But seeing how cloud and virtual servers have proven to be relatively safe for the majority of companies in North America and abroad utilizing them for their businesses, we can only hope that more cloud adoption can gain traction within the next several years.