Even so, the plan must be continuously updated, stress tested and documented amid escalating cyber threats and natural disasters

In an international survey  of 1,121 IT decision-makers overseeing data management, data protection and storage solutions at firms with 100–2,500 employees and at least 5TB of data loads, the loss of critical data continued to disrupt respondents and remained an issue for their organizations.

The survey, conducted recently across Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada (North America), saw 76% of respondents having reported a severe loss of critical data in their organization. Of that number, 45% had suffered permanent data loss.

The research study also found that many respondents could not maintain business continuity on time once data was lost or compromised. Further:

    • 83% indicated that 12 hours or less was an acceptable level of downtime for critical systems before there was a measurable negative business impact
    • 52% indicated they could recover from a severe data loss in 12 hours or less
    • 29% indicated they could not recover data for one day or more
    • 95% indicated that their company had a disaster recovery plan, with 24% indicating having a “mature plan that is well documented, tested, and updated”
    • 83% indicated their organizations included data resilience in their strategies, with 23% indicating they had “a mature approach with associated goals to track progress”

According to David Lenz, Vice President (Asia Pacific), Arcserve, which commissioned the survey: “We live in a world of growing ransomware attacks and frequent natural disasters. Any downtime from data loss can be destructive for a business from impacting sales to losing customer loyalty.

Amid this climate of data risk, Lenz suggested a new approach to disaster recovery where organizations must continuously update, test, and document their disaster recovery plan to build data resilience. The importance of protecting and recovering data should also be elevated to all company levels with specific goals.