Why Data Protection as a service is a massive opportunity for MSPs

The last two years have propelled digital migration to levels never seen before and cloud technology is at the core of it. According to Mordor Reports, the cloud application market was worth $30 billion in 2013 but is now valued at $100 billion. The hybrid cloud model accounts for the most growth and is projected to reach $200 billion by 2027.

But even as organisations continue to migrate to the cloud, one thing that cannot be ignored is the importance of data security. Every day there are new forms of attacks targeting business data, and unfortunately, most businesses lack the right internal skills to manage their data and applications split across the cloud and business premises.

As a result, these businesses are outsourcing data protection roles which present the perfect opportunity for MSPs. The Mordor report estimates that data protection as a service is poised for massive growth to reach $60 billion by 2027. It is currently valued at $20 billion, still a significant increase from $2.44 billion in 2016.

Services that are included as part of data protection include backup and recovery, disaster management, cloud migration, and data security. The backup segment currently carries the biggest potential but the others are also steadily rising.

According to Grandview, the combined might of managed backup & recovery, managed data centres, managed communication, managed information, managed networks, managed mobility, managed infrastructure, and managed security will be worth $168.4 billion by 2028 in the U.S. alone. Managed backup, security, and information are all related to Data protection as a service and account for about 40% of the total.

And while all this is great, experts warn that only prepared MSPs will really reap big from the opportunity. For starters, MSPs will need to have infrastructure that supports a wide range of applications and technologies since they can’t dictate what apps their customers use. MSPs will also need to provide predictable pricing models and customized SLAs that can be implemented by app, data type, industry, and/or tenant.