Unfortunately, Irish SMEs are not adequately prepared for disasters, according to a recent survey of 117 Irish companies conducted by IT solutions provider MJ Flood Technology. The survey revealed that 43 percent of Irish companies have no disaster recovery plan in place, while 25 percent store their backup media in a non-fireproofed location.
Close to one-third of survey respondents said they had never performed a test restore on their data, and 39 percent acknowledged problems trying to retrieve and restore data from backup. Meanwhile, 27 percent said there is only one person within their company who has responsibility for making regular data backups of business-critical information.
What's more, a similar survey conducted by MJ Flood in 2007 returned similar results: the number of companies that had no disaster recovery plan in place (43 percent) has not changed since then.
Failing to prepare
So, are Irish SMEs adequately prepared when it comes to disaster recovery?
"Absolutely not," says James Finglas, managing director, MJ Flood Technology. "SMEs have very little knowledge about disaster recovery and it's very low down their agenda in terms of IT spend. And, as recessionary times bite, it has moved even further down their agenda."
Eoin Blacklock, MD of data recovery specialists keepITsafe, agrees. "About 5 percent are prepared for disaster recovery and about 95 percent are not prepared at all. And the reality is that they don't realise they are not adequately prepared."
SMEs with disaster recovery plans tend to be those who are required to have one in place due to insurance or compliance requirements, says Finglas, but more companies need to focus their minds on the issue.
However, all is not lost. The cost of off-site data storage is decreasing and the number of companies providing disaster recovery services to smaller companies is on the rise.
Disaster recovery vs business continuity
One of the first things businesses need to do is understand the distinction between business continuity and disaster recovery, says Finglas.
Business continuity is a regular activity that gets your critical systems up and running in a specified amount of time in the event of interruption such as a power outage, server failure or network downtime. Business continuity might even extend to providing you with the ability to move to a new office if your old one is no longer usable. (In the next issue, we'll examine the topic of business continuity in detail.)
Disaster recovery, on the other hand, protects your data and provides you with the assurance that you have the ability to recover your data when catastrophe strikes.
Perform test restores
It seems an obvious point, but a staggering 31 percent of companies in the M J Flood survey have never performed a test restore of their data. If you're going to store your data on tape, for example, make sure to test the effectiveness of that medium.
"Most SMEs think that they are taking the correct steps, in the sense that they are changing the tape every day and they're doing their daily backups, but they don't realise if the tape backups aren't actually working," says keepITsafe's Blacklock.
A recent study conducted by Storage Magazine revealed that only 37 percent of businesses test their internal tape backups regularly, and of those that did, an alarming 77 percent found they were unable to fully recover their data. "That's the incredible reality of it. Every day we hear 'We're backing up with tapes. We went to do a restore and we couldn't fully recover'," says Blacklock.
Go off-site
Some 16 percent of companies in the M J Flood survey store their backup media on-site only. However, best practice strongly suggests that both on-site and off-site storage is preferable.
Finglas strongly advises SMEs to look at backing up their data to an off-site data centre. "Within SMEs the level of expertise required to create a disaster recovery strategy would usually be absent. So, engaging an external company is definitely something they should look at. And, as the costs of disaster recovery come down - cost of communications to the data centre and housing within the data centre, for example - it will become more attractive to SMEs," he says.
Get your media right
Many companies are jeopardising their data by relying on tape-based media for their data backup requirements, advises Blacklock.
"They're using 30 year-old magnetic media built on the same principles as the cassette tape. And magnetic media is subject to being ruined by anything from a humid room to direct sunlight to being left too close to a mobile phone," says Blacklock.
By backing up to an off-site server, you can eliminate the risks posed by tape-based storage.
Encrypt your data
Ensure that your backed-up data is stored in an encrypted form. Make sure to choose a disaster recovery (or data storage) provider that offers encrypted storage facilities. And remember that if you have a staff member take an unencrypted, tape-based backup of your server home each night, you are running the risk of losing critical company data in the event the tape is lost or stolen. (For tips on data encryption, see Issue 210.)
Backup configuration
Many SMEs make the mistake of backing up entire servers without configuring that data so that it can be restored easily.
"Microsoft Exchange and SQL database files need to be backed up using backup APIs. Instead a lot of companies are just backing these things up as files, assuming that a file backup is sufficient, when it's so far from sufficient," says Blacklock.
Backup configuration sets the parameters of your backup, from how often your data is to be saved to how many copies of each file to keep. It can be a complicated process for those without some technical know-how however, which can make outsourcing the process attractive to SMEs.
All the available research data suggests that Irish companies have a long way to go when it comes to disaster recovery. But by giving careful consideration to the issues and taking precautions, you can ensure that your company can get back to normal fast if and when disaster strikes.