More than 80% of South African companies suffer unplanned downtime, but research has shown that a third of companies have never tested their disaster recovery (DR) plans, and 10% of IT managers do not know where their DR plan is located.
Commissioned by Veritas Software, the research by Dynamic Markets is based on a cross-industry sample of 850 IT managers responsible for DR planning. The research indicates that 2% of companies never review their DR plans and of those companies that carry out testing, as many as 32% do not test more frequently than every 12 months.
Veritas says this means that the DR plans of many companies are potentially redundant, putting their corporate data at risk.
The Dynamic research shows that while 60% of all companies experienced downtime in the past year, that figure is as high as 36% in SA. Veritas says a third of companies with DR plans in place have needed to execute them.
According to Gartner, two out of five organisations that experience a disaster such as unexpected downtime go out of business within five years. Statistics published by Meta Group show that three-and-a-half hours downtime can result in a minimum loss of $195 000.
Apart from direct revenue loss, Veritas says indirect costs must also be taken into account. Downtime can easily translate into losses through damaged reputation, criminal liability and lost productivity that may result in loss of market share and a lowering of the stock price.
Karen Ancell, Veritas regional marketing director, says on the positive side, 43% of companies in SA are constructing DR plans, but an equal number of companies are still not convinced they have a high enough level of risk to warrant the expense of a DR plan. "When it comes to protection of data and business systems, prevention is better than cure."
She says disaster recovery is a board issue, but globally only 11% of boards are involved in DR planning, with 62% of local IT managers being solely responsible for DR strategy.
Veritas says the overall cost of downtime to business is high and failure to have a DR plan in place could expose companies to the risk of losing everything. A growing consideration is the need for regulatory compliance to protect executive staff from prosecution. The Dynamic research shows 32% of local companies cite compliance as the main reason for drawing up a DR plan.
"Companies must be more responsible," says Ancell. "DR planning is like insurance. It is no use waiting for something to happen before investing."
Neal Watkins, Veritas senior regional product manager, says Steers Holdings is an excellent example of effective DR planning in action. In June, a fire destroyed the IT server infrastructure at the franchise company`s Midrand head office. "After the fire, IT equipment was moved to another location within the Steers office complex and was up and running within 45 minutes."
Watkins says the quick recovery of service and the minimum amount of impact shows the benefit of having a DR plan supported by disaster recovery software tools.
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