A report into the data backup and disaster recovery issues confronting IT professionals on both sides of the Atlantic has found a fairly similar set of concerns for those based both in the UK and the US.
Respondents to an survey carried out by Double-Take Software cited several key areas in which they wanted to see improvement when managing data and recovering from a systems failure or other catastrophic event.
The survey shows that IT administrators are tasked with extremely difficult tasks with dizzying regularity. Most said that they were under pressure to minimise the amount of time elapsing between a disaster occurring and the business recovering to fully operational status.
A significant number of respondents said that they were having to perform testing, maintenance and stability improvements on data backup systems whilst simultaneously looking for ways in which to reduce costs and risks.
Almost half of those questioned said that ageing tape backup solutions were still in use in their businesses, which is far from satisfactory as recovering data from this type of storage is often a lengthy process. This last point illustrates the dismay with which many IT professionals regard the systems that they are required to use every day.
In both the UK and the US, businesses rely upon data protection and disaster recovery systems every day and there is an palpable level of dissatisfaction in certain sectors. The report concludes that this could partially result from the absence of funding for the IT department that is specifically earmarked for the purpose of disaster recovery.
Double-Take’s CEO Dean Goodermote emphasised the importance of computer systems to most businesses in the modern world, with even short periods of down time having a serious potential impact. He also noted that many IT professionals were moving towards systems which protect and backup data on a continual basis rather than intermittently.
It is by definition virtually impossible for many IT departments to foresee an impending disaster and thus the ability to recover quickly and cost-effectively rides ever higher on international agendas.
