New research from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) suggests a lack of confidence in disaster recovery and backup capabilities. The CIF’s survey asked participants to identify which applications represented the biggest risk to their business in the event of failure. Disaster recovery and data backup services were ranked the highest priority amongst those surveyed.

According to Peter Groucutt, managing director of disaster recovery service provider Databarracks, this concern is caused by a lack of rigorous disaster recovery testing in the UK, which is leaving a significant proportion of plans unfit for purpose.

“The CIF research gives an interesting insight into attitudes towards disaster recovery. While it is encouraging to see organisations embracing the business value that DR brings, it does also suggest that concerns over the risk and vulnerability of a plan could be fuelled by a simple lack of confidence in their ability to execute it.

“The findings from our most recent Data Health Check revealed that from over 400 IT professionals in UK organisations, 88% of respondents with a formalised business continuity plan in place had a specific IT disaster recovery plan outlined within it, with a further seven per cent planning to implement this within the next 12 months. It’s encouraging to see organisations factoring disaster recovery into their continuity plans, but simply having a plan in place is not enough.

“Unfortunately, when it comes to disaster recovery too many organisations end up treating it as a documentation exercise. From our own research, it was revealed that a significant proportion of organisations, notably SMEs, were not carrying out regular testing on their disaster recovery plans. Unsurprisingly, the impact of not testing had a huge knock-on effect, whereby only 28% of non-testers were “very confident” in their plans compared to almost 60% of those which regularly test.”

Groucutt continued: “Without testing your disaster recovery plan, you have no idea if it’s actually going to be fit-for-purpose in a disaster, no matter how impressive the technology is. Testing highlights weaknesses, enabling businesses to address them before they have the chance to do any damage. We recommend testing your disaster recovery plan at least annually, but regularly updating critical information like roles, responsibilities and contact details, so that anyone who happened to pick up your plan in the disaster would know exactly what the call to action is.”

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