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Symantec found that IT professionals responsible for disaster recovery have been largely able to rise to these and other challenges, perhaps due to increased executive involvement. However, the study found that testing disaster recovery increasingly impacts customers and revenue, and one in four tests fails. In addition, incorporating virtualisation into disaster recovery plans is still a major challenge for organisations. Due to this and other factors, executives are more involved in disaster recovery initiatives.
Disaster Recovery Regional Data EMEA Survey Results June 2009 Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 2 CONTENTS Executive summary .......................................................................3 Methodology .................................................................................4 Demographics ...............................................................................5 Finding 1: Significant Cost of Downtime ........................................6 Finding 2: DR Budgets Expected to be Flat ..................................7 Finding 3: DR Testing Impacting Customers and Revenue...........8 Finding 4: Virtualization Changing DR Approach ..........................9 Key Recommendations ............................................................... 10 Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Doing more with less has been the recent mantra for IT professionals due to flat budgets. Add to that the increased pressures caused by high downtime costs, stringent service level agreements, and the potential for system outages to test disaster recovery plans, and you may think you have a recipe for disaster. In this year s annual Disaster Recovery Research, Symantec found that IT professionals responsible for disaster recovery have been largely able to rise to these and other challenges, perhaps due to increased executive involvement. However, the study found that testing disaster recovery increasingly impacts customers and revenue, and one in four tests fails. In addition, incorporating virtualization into disaster recovery plans is still a major challenge for organizations. Due to this and other factors, executives are more involved in disaster recovery initiatives. Key findings of the 2009 Disaster Recovery Research Report include the following: The cost of downtime is significant Although DR budgets continue to rise in 2009, they are expected to be flat in 2010 DR testing increasingly impacts customers and revenue Virtualization changes how organizations approach DR Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 4 METHODOLOGY Symantec surveyed 1,650 companies worldwide. Applied Research was selected to perform the survey and targeted the following personnel: Enterprise IT (at least 5,000 employees worldwide) Companies with a current DR plan Personnel involved with DR management The survey was performed in June 2009.Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 5 DEMOGRAPHICS Symantec spoke with 800 companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). All companies included in the survey had at least 5,000 employees worldwide. Slightly more than one third of respondents in EMEA were CIOs/CTOs (35 percent). Twenty-six percent were IT managers, with the remaining respondents being split almost evenly between VPs/SVPs (14 percent), Data Center Managers or Directors (13 percent), and IT Staff (10 percent). Twenty-nine percent of respondents worked in the technology/online market. Twenty-seven provided financial services, and 15 percent were service providers. Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 6 FINDING 1: SIGNIFICANT COST OF DOWNTIME In the past year, nearly all organizations (93 percent) have had to implement DR plans (either in full or partially). They reported they could get mostly back up and running in about four hours after a site-wide outage. A similar amount said they could achieve skeleton operations in a median of four hours. Based on recovery time reported by respondents and the cost per hour of downtime, it can be deduced that the cost per incident in EMEA averages approximately 295,000. The median cost per incident can rise as high as 500,000 in EMEA. Additionally, IT is becoming more critical to organizations, demonstrating the crucial problems associated with downtime. Sixty percent of all applications are now deemed mission critical, up from 54 percent in 2008. Applications and web servers are the most likely technologies to be covered by DR plans (59 percent each), followed by database servers (58 percent each). Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 7 FINDING 2: BUDGETS EXPECTED TO BE FLAT Though Disaster Recovery budgets are currently rising in 2009, they re expected to be fairly flat in 2010. In 2010, 47 percent of respondents believe that budgets will remain the same. Conversely, 48 percent believe that budgets will increase, which is slightly more optimistic than global findings and other regions. With IT needs increasing and budgets remaining steady, it becomes apparent that more will need to be done with the same or less. Executive involvement rising One side effect of flat budgets and the increase in the strategic and critical nature of IT is that executive involvement in Disaster Recovery initiatives is increasing. Seventy-two percent of respondents indicated that executives (CIO, CTO, IT director) are involved in DR committees. Compared to 24 percent indicating the same in 2008, this is a significant rise. Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 8 FINDING 3: DR TESTING IMPACTING CUSTOMERS AND REVENUE Disaster recovery testing, while important, also has a negative impact. When asked about barriers to running full-scenario tests on their disaster recovery plans, 41 percent of respondents indicated a fear of disruption to customers. Twenty-seven percent indicated a fear of disruption to sales and the revenue stream. These both rose from 28 percent and 15 percent, respectively, in 2008. Another 45 percent said it could cause disruption to employees. Additionally, more than one third of such tests (35 percent) failed to recover critical data and applications within their specified targets. Symantec believes that disaster recovery testing methods should not disrupt business operations. As respondents point to people (42 percent) and processes (35 percent) as two of the main reasons tests fail, more automated tools would help to address this challenge. Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 9 FINDING 4: VIRTUALIZATION CHANGING DR APPROACH As technology evolves, so does disaster recovery. The rising popularity of virtualization is causing 67 percent of organizations to re-evaluate their disaster recovery plans, a significant increase from 43 percent in 2008. In addition, companies only back up 36 percent of their data in virtual environments. That said, however, virtual environments still have a way to go. Just over one fourth of organizations reported that they do not test their virtual servers. Untitled DocumentDisaster Recovery Survey EMEA: June 2009 10 KEY RECOMMENDATIONS Organizations can do a better job at curbing the costs of downtime by implementing more automation tools that minimize human involvement and address other weaknesses in their disaster recovery plans. Because disaster recovery testing is invaluable, but can significantly impact business including customers and revenue organizations should seek to improve the success of testing by evaluating and implementing testing methods which are non-disruptive. Organizations should include those responsible for virtualization in disaster recovery plans, especially testing and backup initiatives. Virtual environments should be treated the same as a physical server, showing the need for organizations to adopt more cross-platform and cross-environment tools, or standardize on fewer platforms.
