Irish firms headed for data disaster

19-02-2008

by Stephen Errity

Only a third of Irish companies have completed plans for the protection and recovery of their data in the event of a disaster, according to a new survey.

Carried out by PAN Research on behalf of the business IP services provider Strencom, the survey revealed that a worrying 67 percent of the 84 Irish businesses surveyed had failed to put completed disaster recovery plans in place. It also found that more than half (55 percent) of these companies without a recovery plan have multiple facilities throughout the country dependent on one single IT location.

Strencom managing director Tim Murphy told ENN that he was surprised at the results. "Data is the lifeblood of almost any business these days, from a one-man operation to a multinational corporation," he said. "So it's frightening to think that many of the business you and I may be dealing with on a daily basis don't have the proper contingency plans in place to recover in the event of losing it."

Murphy added that while the term 'disaster recovery' may conjure up images of catastrophic fires and other large-scale events, major data loss can also occur as a result of 'something quite small that you never saw coming,' such as IT security breaches, equipment failure or a telecommunications problem. Experts warn that the lack of sufficient disaster recovery planning can upgrade the consequences of a major data loss from a minor inconvenience to a significant amount of downtime or even total business failure.

Murphy also believes that more education is needed to make companies aware of the necessity of disaster recovery planning, but that use of so-called 'stick' methods may bring results as well. "Company directors are now responsible for their firm's data and they can be fined in the event of data loss," he said. "A couple of high-profile court cases like that might drive people to eliminate any risk of data loss they may have."

Third-party data centres are now playing pivotal 'co-location' role in data protection according to Murphy and the Strencom survey also quizzed companies on their priorities when looking for off-site data storage. Unsurprisingly, security (48 percent) and access to the data centre (31 percent) were the key concerns among the respondents.