Companies depend on their data, which is why it is extremely important for the smooth running of the business to store and secure them regularly. If data is so important, what's stopping companies from fully protecting it?

First, new data is created so quickly that companies can no longer compete:

• By 2020, the world's data volume will reach 40 trillion gigabytes.
• 90 percent of the world's data has been generated in the last two years.
• In 2014, the number of mobile users worldwide will increase to 4.55 billion.
• 250 billion photos have been uploaded to Facebook so far.
• 400 million tweets are posted on Twitter every day.

Second, continuous networking means that companies are constantly creating more and more data around the clock via a steadily increasing number of devices and applications. As a result, backup windows have virtually dissolved in the air.

Modern communication technologies and social media create more data of all kinds - and there is no end in sight. The burgeoning "Internet of Things" will multiply the amount of data produced, backed up and analyzed by companies. Cisco predicts there will be as many as 50 billion interconnected devices by 2020, all of which will generate data.

Third, data is now in more places than ever before (on enterprise servers, on external storage systems, on personal devices, in the cloud, etc.). All these factors make it difficult to design and implement a backup plan.

In combination, the various difficulties present the data dilemma of modern IT departments: more data is being generated from multiple sources and in more places. On the other hand, round-the-clock backup windows are becoming shorter and shorter.

Even internal vulnerabilities endanger data, and often the IT is not even aware of this. A Cisco survey found that 20% of IT professionals consider disgruntled employees as the biggest internal threat to corporate data. The Heartbleed bug, which was a recent hustle and bustle, revealed another hidden hitherto hidden risk: malware.

It's irrelevant how data gets lost - be it through angry employees, unintentional human error, malware, extraordinary accidents or even natural disasters. Once the files are gone, you may never get them back. Such as the medical records that were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, or the system configuration files, the custom source code, and the patches that Hurricane Sandy has on his conscience.

Even the best-prepared IT department is not immune to serious data loss. Due to a Microsoft Azure outage, data analyst Dedoose, used by scientists and researchers, recently lost more than three weeks to customer data. In addition, the company's storage systems also failed, leaving all customers who had not secured their data in the rain.

New generation data protection solutions are different. They have been specially developed for the environments of our time. These solutions protect any data in any environment, anywhere, on any device. Imaging technology captures and backs up all data in a universal backup format. They capture data of all kinds, store it on any storage system and restore it to any platform, hypervisor or operating system. And they provide access through remote systems to minimize downtime and enable Recovery Time Objective (RPO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).