Disaster Recovery. This is a great topic for this week when much of the country has been inundated with severe winter weather. With earthquakes, tsunamis and blizzards, not to mention fires, floods and thefts – Disaster Recovery plans have become a non-negotiable necessity for companies today.

In their 5th consecutive annual report, Symantec’s 2009 Disaster Recovery Report shows improvement in the numbers of organizations who are implementing, testing and even using their DR plans. Of those surveyed, 93 percent said that they have had to put their DR plans to work, and that on average it takes 3 hours to achieve skeleton operations, and four hours to be completely up and running. This is a dramatic improvement over 2008’s report which showed 3 percent of respondents achieving skeleton operations within 12 hours, and 31 percent believing they could have complete operations within one day.

The number of CIO, CTO and IT Directors on DR committees increased from 33 percent in 2008 all the way up to 70 percent in 2009. That’s an excellent improvement.

With budgets for Disaster Recovery reportedly much higher in 2009, more companies are prepared for the unexpected. However the main issues that still remain are the testing and back up of virtual systems. Of those that tested their system, 25 percent failed. Additionally one third of those surveyed said that they don’t test their virtual environments regularly, and even more noted that they don’t regularly back them up. The only way to ensure your Disaster Recovery Plan will work is to be consistent, back up your data and test your systems and plan. Those that do will have a distinct advantage over their competitors.

To read more about the findings in an article on csoonline.com, click here.
To read Symantec’s Disaster Recover Research Report, or the key findings, click here.

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