Irish business waiting 40 hours to retrieve essential data, says new survey
A survey conducted by ICT solutions provider Datapac has revealed that Irish businesses expect to wait an average of 40 hours to recover mission critical data that has been lost.
Amid the increasing demands placed on businesses’ technology infrastructures, the survey of 163 IT professionals found that the amount of data stored by organisations has increased by an average of 37% in the last 12 months.
Worryingly, this massive growth in data volumes doesn’t mean all businesses have taken measures to maintain the integrity of this data. Just over a quarter (26%) of Irish businesses surveyed said that they’d never carried out disaster recovery tests to ensure their data back-ups are recoverable.
While 76% of respondents indicated that mobile working is becoming more prevalent in their businesses, almost a third (32%) said that Irish businesses don’t have technology platforms and support solutions in place to effectively manage mobile working.
In terms of resourcing and time management, IT professionals spend around 35% of their time managing day-to-day reactive issues such as fixing IT hardware, software and printers. Furthermore, three-quarters of those surveyed believe that the amount of time their IT department spends tackling such incidents is compromising their ability to add real value to their organisations.
Further trends were identified in the outsourcing of IT solutions, with most companies engaging in outsourcing in some form.
Karen O’Connor, general manager service delivery at Datapac, comments: “The average length of time to recover mission critical data is unacceptably long at 40 hours. Delays of this magnitude will cause significant financial and reputational damage for most businesses in Ireland. Another worrying finding is that more than a quarter of businesses never carry our tests on their disaster recovery capabilities.
“With data volumes continuing to grow at pace and security threats becoming increasingly prevalent, these are problems that just won’t go away. We recommend that companies perform a full disaster recovery test at least once a year and more frequently for industry sectors with stricter compliance regulations and targets.”
