Disregard disaster recovery at your peril

Many of today's businesses have yet to implement an effective disaster recovery (DR) strategy, with more than half admitting that they spend less than one per cent of their entire IT budget on DR.

According to a study commissioned by storage services company Sagitta, although companies are aware of the damaging effects of a disaster - with one third citing damage to the reputation of the business and a quarter expressing direct loss of revenue as key concerns - current IT budgets do not reflect the need for a DR strategy.

Three quarters of IT managers questioned indicated that they only have a base level DR programme in place, despite the fact that 28 per cent of respondents stated that disk failure would be a key threat to their business.

"With the recent publicity that DR has been getting it is astonishing to see that it is not a priority for companies today," commented Andy Norman, chief executive of Sagitta.

"It is clear from the results that there is still a gap between what people need to ensure an effective DR strategy is in place, and what they actually have.

"There is a common misconception that DR solutions have to cost a lot of money; this is simply not true. The lack of suitable DR strategies is leaving many companies at risk."