Strencom research reveals that only 33% of Irish companies have completed disaster recovery plans

Published 25th February 2008

• Almost 55% of companies with no disaster recovery plan have multiple locations throughout the country dependent on one central IT service centre.
• Security (48%) and easy access to the data centre (31%) are the main concerns for companies when considering co-location services.

Strencom, the business IP services provider, today published the results of a survey on disaster recovery planning and co-location in Irish businesses. The survey revealed that 67% of Irish businesses have failed to put completed disaster recovery (DR) plans in place, despite the risk to mission critical IT services and the possibility of substantial system downtime after a disaster.

The Strencom survey was carried out by PAN Research among 84 Irish businesses ranging in size from SMEs to large organisations. It was completed in January 2008.

The survey shows that 55% of those businesses without a DR plan in place have multiple locations completely dependent on one centralised IT service centre. In the event of natural disaster, hardware or software malfunction or even something as simple as a road closure or a telecom problem, an external back-up is crucial if a business is to regain functionality as swiftly as possible. The lack of redundancy in the event of disaster has the potential to elevate an inconvenience into a catastrophic business failure.

The survey reveals that security (48%) and access to the data centre (31%) are the key concerns Irish businesses have when considering co-locating their services to an independent data centre. “As information and, importantly, access to information become the cornerstones of business success, the co-location of critical IT services is being recognised as essential. From basic online back-up to outsourcing all IT services, data centres are playing a pivotal role in disaster recovery planning”, said Tim Murphy, managing director, Strencom.

“It is surprising that such a high number of companies have been slow-paced regarding disaster recovery planning, particularly given their complete dependence on access to data to keep the business live. Despite this, as directors are held more accountable for data loss they are driving the implementation of co-located IT frameworks to support data recovery.

“Ultimately, disaster recovery planning is not something that you can forget about once you complete it. The best recovery plan is a live recovery plan; one that is tested and exercised regularly. The key focus is the continuity of the business. This can mean backing-up mission critical data, decentralising IT and increasing the mobility of resources,” concluded Tim Murphy.