All customers, large and small, must have in place sensible data protection strategies. Outsourcing data protection is an option that should be considered based on economics, quality, risk reduction and convenience. Large customers should endeavor to carefully consider the operational overheads associated with protecting data and understand total costs for internally managing versus sourcing such services. In general, it is best to do your own homework and not rely solely on the analysis of the service provider. As well, given potentially high switching costs, negotiating shorter contracts is advisable. Smaller customers must begin to recognize that their information is as important as large customers and outsourced data protection services provide a path to best in class data protection.