Datasouth

Disaster Recovery - expensive recession luxury or cheap at the price?

Monday, 21 September 2009

Amidst the pressure of a recession and management mantras to reduce cost, disaster recovery can look like an expensive luxury. However, given risk can be amplified in a recession, any CIO needs to evaluate what they are doing to ensure continuity of their IT systems.

The frightening reality is that organisations who suffer a major data loss rarely recover from it. According to a University of Texas study, 43% never re-open, 51% close within two years, and only 6% survive in the long-term.

Perhaps this is not surprising given the growing corporate dependence on information technology. One indicator, level of internet usage, shows how dependent most businesses are on communicating and transacting using their computer systems.

Recent New Zealand government statistics show 89% of firms use broadband internet, and of those 85% for managing the financial aspects of their business. Across the ditch, 87% of Australian businesses rely on the Internet, with 82% of them using it for financial transactions. And figures show the larger the organisation the more reliant they are on their online connections – 99% of businesses with over 200 employees use broadband internet.

As well as this dependence on IT to run our businesses, there is also the pressure created by the longer hours and increasing globalisation of our economies. Many Australian and New Zealand companies are trading longer hours and doing business with more organisations from more countries. Whereas in the past you could afford some middle of the night outages, nowadays there is much less appetite for that amongst globally competitive businesses.

The typical areas of risk for IT impact include things like human error – where somebody inadvertently corrupts data or damages some key equipment; hardware failure; or theft and other malicious actions by staff or external people. Even rare, but often catastrophic natural disasters like earthquakes, fire or flood can pose a risk to your IT.

Business continuity experts say risks can actually increase during a recession. Of course if a business is failing due to tough economy times, no amount of disaster recovery planning will help. But in a recession the threat of impacts like theft, fraud and supplier failure grow. And accessing short term capital to address these issues is much harder.

What are the key ingredients for disaster proofing your IT infrastructure?

Planning is a first and very worthwhile step. It is not so much having a documented plan, which can get outdated, but going through the process of assessing what you have of value that could be at risk. Some organisations are not fully aware of what software versions they have, the age and range of their hardware and what data is where. For example, businesses sometimes find a surprising amount of important data residing on laptops being used outside the firm and not regularly backed up.

There are a range of technology solutions that can be applied to enhance your IT safety. For example tools for monitoring and undertaking automated maintenance can significantly reduce risk and minimise network downtime. Automated data backups and real-time replication of critical business information can also provide peace of mind.

Add in regular staff training and running risk exercises annually and you can feel reasonably well prepared.

But how can you get executive backing for this kind of expenditure in a down turn? The only way is to determine the return on investment of business continuity activity. Calculating the total costs of network downtime or data loss and comparing that against the annualised costs of technology solutions will give you some evidence as to whether investments are justified.

Of course managers may still say no. They key thing is that the information is available and a conscious decision about potential risks has been made. It’s important that heads aren’t being put in the sand and the threat of disaster ignored until it is too late.

If you’d like to discuss disaster recovery strategies, contact Datasouth to talk to a consultant. Datasouth specialises in the provision of technology solutions that assists organisations in enhancing their business by improved information flow and productivity. As an organisation that has been providing advice to government and corporate clients for over fifteen years, we can advise, design and implement solutions that truly provide a competitive edge and reduced cost structures.

Datasouth specialises in the provision of technology solutions that assists organisations in enhancing their business by improved information flow and productivity. As an organisation that has been providing advice to government and corporate clients for over fifteen years, we can advise, design and implement solutions that truly provide a competitive edge and reduced cost structures.

To better understand how we may help you to drive your business forward, please contact Datasouth to discuss your specific requirements.