An increasing number of IT professionals are failing to carry out tests on their disaster recovery (DR) systems in the face of tighter budgets and IT complexities, according to the latest research
A survey of 100 IT decision makers conducted by Plan B at Cloud Exp Europe in February found that 50% never test their DR system, while 28% said they test it every three months. Despite this, about 71% said they are confident that their DR solution meets their business needs.
The research also found that nearly one in five DR tests are unsuccessful, while almost one-third cannot remember what the result of their last recovery was, which leaves over a half of companies that can be confident their last test was successful.
The report said: "Companies should be 100% aware of the reliability of their DR solution. More regular testing would achieve this and give IT departments a more accurate judgement on the reliability of their DR solution."
The research showed the majority of companies are still using offsite backup for DR, but virtual standby solutions are starting to compete as costs come down and performance improves.
"Given that there is a high rate of failure of backup tapes, those who are using this lower performance method of DR and not testing it run a very high risk that they won’t be able to recover as much data as quickly as they would expect in the event of a disaster," the report said.
When asked about recovery time objectives (RTOs), most companies stated between 4 and 24 hours.
