Disaster recovery testing is ignored

By Staff Writer for Symantec

Johannesburg, 06 Jul 2009

More than 35% of companies worldwide test their disaster recovery (DR) plans once a year or less, according to Symantec. These were the findings in the security firm's annual IT Disaster Recovery survey, which interviewed 1 650 organisations in 24 countries, including SA.

“There appears to be a gulf emerging between those companies with a rigorous testing regime and those that appear to be content to do the absolute minimum,” says Gordon Love, Symantec regional director for Africa.

A Symantec statement says the top two reasons why respondents failed to test their DR systems were the impact such tests would have on their customers (40%), and the effect on sales and revenue (27%).

“This need not be the case,” adds Love. “It is possible to build testing systems in such a way that they can be run frequently without disrupting business operations. Greater automation in the testing process is key to ensuring that these tests have a minimal impact on the business.”

Other reasons cited included the lack of resources in terms of people's time (48%), the disruption DR tests would cause to employees (44%), and budget constraints (44%).

Symantec concludes that regardless of the reasons companies are failing to test their DR plans, concerns over the costs of downtime are rising.

"The surging cost of downtime places greater emphasis on business, which means more pressure on IT,“ says Rob Soderbery, senior VP of Symantec's storage and availability management group.

“If organisations are not protecting virtual environments, not testing their DR plans and seeing one out every four tests fail, then something needs to change to better manage risk to the business. “Organisations should implement solutions that address these needs while allowing them to leverage existing assets.”