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Cost of downtime 'puts pressure on disaster recovery'
Disaster recovery strategies are becoming increasingly important to business leaders due to the growing cost of downtime periods, a new report has indicated.
The fifth annual IT disaster recovery survey from Symantec reveals that although disaster recovery budgets have increased in the first half of 2009, many firms need more resources to cope with significant downtime costs.
According to the survey, the average cost of implementing a continuity plan for each downtime incident worldwide is currently $287,600 (£176,777).
The study, which involved over 1,650 IT managers in 24 countries in the US and Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and South America, found that the median cost rose to more than $900,000 per incident for North American businesses.
However, the survey also discovered that the general performance of disaster recovery plans has improved from 2008 levels.
According to the findings, it now takes the average organisation three hours to resume 'skeleton operations' after a serious power outage, while last year only three per cent claimed they could achieve that level in 12 hours.
"While some aspects are faring well, the impact of downtime is greater than ever before," said Rob Soderbery, senior vice president of Symantec's storage and availability management group.
He added: "The surging cost of downtime places greater emphasis on business, which means more pressure on IT.
"If organisations are not protecting virtual environments, not testing their disaster recovery plans and seeing one out of every four tests fail, then something needs to change to better manage risk to the business."
Meanwhile, a separate survey commissioned by SunGard Availability Services recently indicated that executives in larger organisations often lack an understanding of disaster recovery and its importance.
Conducted by Harris Interactive, the study found that just 49 per cent of business executives believe that continuity plans are important to the overall success of their organisation, compared with 74 per cent of IT leaders.
Patrick Doherty, executive vice president at SunGard Availability Services, said that a lack of understanding on the business side could lead to low levels of funding for disaster recovery plans, which will in turn leave a company exposed to costly outages.
He commented: "The reality is IT lives in a pass/fail world when it comes to disaster preparedness.
"This makes it imperative for IT and business to share responsibility in helping ensure systems, information and people stay connected."
A third new survey, conducted by the Dublin-based firm MJ Flood Technology, has indicated that 43 per cent of businesses in Ireland currently have no disaster recovery structure or data back-up plans in place.
Managing director James Finglas claimed that many firms are leaving themselves exposed to severe disruption and loss of revenue by failing to protect their data.
He said: "Data is the currency of the knowledge economy and senior executives have a corporate responsibility to ensure that it is backed up to best practice and stored securely."
If you would like more information on 8el's Disaster Recovery solution, please call our sales team on 0118 338 3062 or email info@8el.com.
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