Arcserve has just released the key findings from its annual independent global research study, which show that the loss of critical data continues to disrupt businesses and remain an issue for organisations. In the research study of experiences and attitudes of UK IT decision makers, 83% of respondents reported a severe loss of critical data in their organisation. Of that number, 36% had permanent data loss. Data is a priceless commodity, and these findings underscore the importance of building data resilience with a robust data backup and recovery plan with data integrity at the core to prevent severe business disruptions. The research study also found that many UK organisations could not maintain business continuity on time once data was lost or compromised.

91% of respondents said that 12 hours or less is an acceptable level of downtime for critical systems before there is a measurable negative business impact. Still, only 59% could recover from a severe data loss in 12 hours or less and 18% of the businesses surveyed couldn't recover data for one day or more.

Commenting on the research, Florian Malecki, executive vice president, marketing at Arcserve said: "Our annual survey reinforces the business imperative for organisations to implement a data resilience strategy that incorporates mature data backup and disaster recovery plans. We live in a world of growing ransomware attacks and frequent natural disasters. Any downtime from data loss can be destructive for a business from impacting sales to losing customer loyalty."

According to Alan Stewart-Brown, VP EMEA at Opengear, the best way for enterprises to prevent network outages and downtime from occurring in the first place is by being “proactive in securing their network resilience with trending technologies such as (an) independent management plane, Smart Out-of-Band technologies and NetOps to ensure optimum business continuity and keep the network up and running.” Read Alan’s article in this issue for more guidance on avoiding outages and dodging the downtime doldrums.

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