Plan - Drive Recovery Site

Be Sure To Test Your Disaster Recovery Plan

Too many companies are feeling too secure in the wipy data recover plans they have in place. The wrongly believe that data recovery systems put in place years ago are still just fine for today. But the truth is that nobody in the company knows how they work or how to implement them. The trouble is that no single person was given the responsibility to learn about the data recovery plan and be able to implement it in the event that data is lost through a hard drive crash, virus or other event.

Some people consider it risky to test data recover plans, because it usually requires simulating a complete computer system failure. No one wants to get too familiar with such a scenario. Once in a while, a data recovery system test will result in a loss of data, but not if it's a good system and done properly.

It's a sorry situation for many businesses who think disaster recovery is a plan that only needs attention after a major loss of data. If they don't have a schedule for testing, a virus, natural disaster or espionage event could be very painful. After the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, data recovery companies invested huge amounts of money to expand their capabilities because data mining by terrorists became a serious threat.

Data security experts say that the instincts of companies to test and improve their data recovery plans was a good one after 9/11, but investment in that area has leveled off and most companies are back to ignoring their data recovery systems until they're needed.

Veritas, a data recovery software manufacturer, said a recent survey the company did revealed that 97% of companies think computer system failures are their biggest problem, but only 72% of respondents have a data recovery plan.

By not maintaining an effective data recovery plan, these companies could expose themselves to bad career situations. The board of directors at many companies are already in trouble because they failed to maintain their data recovery plan adequately.

Jeanette O'Neil, the head of business continuity at LogicaCMG, said that a process has been placed at board level to make sure that it has the legal burden of assessing client companies for data recovery risks. This process is carried out via the Turnbull Report, which also contains the Code of Conduct and Ethics on Corporate Governance for the company. To ensure success in this venture, the board breaches its legal obligations if they don't provide a detailed understanding of the risks and potential losses that may result from the data recovery plans in place or miss an opportunity to improve business continuity.

Despite all these measure being taken and today's advanced technology, there is not data recovery program, software or plan that is fool proof. These plans and products keep data loss at a minimum.