Unplanned downtime is biggest IT concern

Unplanned downtime is the biggest IT management concern for UK businesses, according to a new survey.

Despite the findings, more than 37% of businesses have no disaster recovery plan in place to address the problem.

Research commissioned by technology company Dell also found that nearly a third of companies with a disaster recovery plan have had to make use of it at some time.

The main reason firms gave for not implementing a disaster recovery plan was that it was not considered a "business priority", suggesting that most take a reactive approach to protecting their company data.

More than one in 10 said that they did not have the resources to implement a solution, while 17% said they either didn't know how to implement a business continuity solution or didn't know whom to contact for advice.

Steve Lewis, director of enterprise business, Dell UK, said: "This research shows how important it is for companies to have some form of business continuity solution in place.

"The fact that almost one in three firms that have a disaster recovery plan in place have had to use them indicates how vital they are at protecting corporate data. Loss of data can have dramatic consequences to companies of any size."

Other findings
Of the companies that had not implemented a business continuity solution, 40% had "looked into" disaster recovery in the past year, while 39% had not looked into disaster recovery at all.

Nine out of ten firms with a continuity plan said their solution was "worthwhile", although only 29% actually knew how much it cost to implement. The survey also revealed that companies spend an average of 8.3% of their IT budgets on disaster recovery.

As many as 91% said their disaster recovery solution covered all company data and databases were considered the most "mission-critical applications".

The majority of firms use tape (64%) and back up software (54%) to protect their systems and conduct a risk assessment every ten months on average.

Half of the companies surveyed were small to medium sized businesses (51-250 employees), while the other half had 250 employees or more.

Johnny Thomson