The impact ofclimate changeand the inexorablerise of online threatshave prompted CIOs, CTOs and
IT directors to get directly involved in prioritising disaster
recovery, demonstrating that it is becoming a business rather than
an IT issue,writes Darren Thomson.
In 2008, a mere 33% of respondents to a study by Symantec
reported that their
disaster recovery plan involved senior executives. This year's
Disaster Recovery survey revealed 70% of senior executives are now
taking an active part in ensuring their business can cope with
disaster, with 44% of plans being watched over by the careful eye
of the CEO through a disaster recovery committee.
Another reason for executive involvement is the increase of
applications that are seen as mission-critical. More than half
(60%) of applications were deemed
mission-critical by respondents, and nearly the same amount are
covered in disaster recovery plans. Any sort of outage to these
systems will have an enormous impact to the business.
These figures demonstrate that, with profits down and potential
threats to business up, CIOs are increasingly putting an emphasis
on making sure their business can cope should the worst happen.
While executive involvement has increased, the question remains
whether the recession has blinded organisations to disaster
recovery. The misconception is that disaster recovery should cost
the earth, an all-encompassing strategy. What it should be seen as
is a see-saw: as you spend on disaster recovery plans, your
operational efficiency benefits.
A big concern is the fact that almost one in three businesses
does not undertake disaster recovery testing because they believe
it could significantly disrupt their sales and revenue. What
companies do not realise is the damage to their reputation and
bottom line could be severe in the face of disaster. Should
disaster strike and leave a company's databases, application
servers and web servers out of action, it can mean a loss of £4,300
an hour.
If you are smart, you will take a structured approach,
protecting your most crucial assets and tiering the rest in order
of their mission-critical status. This multiple layer approach
means that you are protected without breaking the bank. It does
mean, however, that you need to make sure you have asked the right
questions of your business - with one in four scenario tests
failing, it is clear that there is a dramatic need for
improvement.
Let's see if the increase in senior involvement drives this
change moving forwards.
Darren Thomson is senior technical director EMEA at
Symantec (UK) Ltd