90% Cos Feel Their Data Is Unsafe From A Disaster

Quantum Corp., an expert in data protection and Big Data management, has announced survey findings focused on disaster recovery (DR) from its 2012 IT Manager Survey. According to the survey, 90 percent of IT decision makers think their data is vulnerable in the event of a disaster. While only a three percent increase in perceived risk from Quantum’s 2010 survey findings, this is particularly notable considering all of the focus on improving DR over the last few years. Twenty-seven percent experienced some form of data security incident in the last year, only 15 percent of which were due to natural disasters.

The survey also found:

• The number of respondents describing their organisation’s data as “extremely vulnerable” edged up from 8 percent in the 2010 survey to 11 percent, and the number who felt minimally vulnerable or not vulnerable shrank from 51 percent to 31 percent.

• The most common data security incident was virus attacks, up 7 percentage points from 2010, showing the need to have a robust backup process in place as viruses can permeate multiple data copies.

• Operating system failure (48 percent) was the next most common security issue, which saw a 21 percentage point increase from the previous survey.

• While 68 percent of respondents back up data daily or more for DR purposes, 16 percent back up weekly or less, showing there is still room for adoption of best practices.

Companies that aren’t able to restore their archive or DR data face significant delays in business activities, lost revenue, and a negative impact on resources. Half of all respondents noted that a data restore problem could put service level agreements with customers at risk. All of these consequences directly affect a company’s financials.

The heightened awareness of the vulnerability of data assets and the consequences of a disaster have made DR an IT budget priority. According to a survey by industry analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group, one quarter of IT professionals listed business continuity/DR programs among their organisation’s most important IT priorities for 2012 spending.

“Natural disasters such as this summer’s wildfires have dominated recent discussion around disaster recovery planning for IT, but there are other threats to data security that are even more pressing for IT managers,” said Robert Clark, Senior Vice President, Data Protection Group, Quantum. “We’re seeing a strong, sustained interest in the value of deduplicated and replicated disk backup and path-to-tape solutions for a best-practices approach to DR. In addition, many customers are now seeking all-in-one solutions that protect both physical and virtual environments. Increasingly, companies are also turning to cloud software and services for a solution to DR challenges.”

In February 2012, Quantum contracted Toluna to conduct a survey of 500 IT decisions makers at businesses with at least 100 employees. To be included in the survey, respondents were pre-screened to ensure they were involved with the data storage function at their organisation.