Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity are concepts not taken seriously enough by many company boards.
A survey released by EMC revealed that the UK is not giving DR the focus it arguably merits.
According to the survey 78% of UK organisations have experienced data loss in the last 12 months. This is higher than the European average of 54%.
The affects of IT outages must me made clear to CEOs and other senior board members, in order to ensure that a serious plan is put in place.
Neil Fisher, Vice Chairman of the information Assurance Advisory Council stated:
“DR is about the survival of the business so it should be a board-level issue. Without board backing, the strategy will never work. ”
Data must be classified in terms of importance. For some data sets it may be acceptable to have two days worth of downtime, whereas for others it is unacceptable to have two seconds.
Tony Lock, analyst at research firm Freeform Dynamics emphasises this point:
“Most companies don’t understand the value of different data sets.”
One of the worst ways in which a company can be caught unprepared is through having unrealistic Recovery Time Objectives or Recovery Point Objectives. Inconsistency in backups or poor management can also present significant threats, should a disaster occur.
Organisations must constantly question what could realistically go wrong within their IT environment, and how those events would affect the rest of the business. Companies are often under the false assumption that their DR plan is sufficient, when in many cases it needs seriously addressing.
