Fire, cockup and virus calamity vex storage managers
By John Leyden
Published Tuesday 6th September 2005 15:46 GMT
Fire, computer viruses and human error are viewed as the main threats
to corporate data by European businesses, according to a survey by
storage specialists Hitachi Data Systems. The latest edition of HDS’s
bi-annual Storage Index reckons that low-tech 'old fashioned' threats
pose the greatest risk of upsetting the operations of European
corporates.
Of the 821 firms questioned, 82 per cent claim to have a disaster
recovery strategy in place, with two in three (65 per cent) of that
group also having a remote disaster recovery site to which they
replicate important data. However, despite fire being cited as a main
threat to data, one third (35 per cent) of firms do not currently
back-up data remotely, while 31 per cent also reckon the priority
given to business continuity by their company’s executive board is
too low.
The research also highlighted regional differences in attitudes
towards business continuity. While fire (57 per cent), computer
viruses (55 per cent) and human error (50 per cent) were the three
most common perceived threats to data across all countries - followed
by hacking (32 per cent) and downtime (31 per cent) - terrorism,
though only polling 11 per cent in total, was a prominent concern for
firms in the UK, Spain and Israel. Perhaps it's no coincidence that
all three countries have been the subject of terrorist attack over
the last year or so. Financial institutions cited terrorism as a far
greater threat (22 per cent) than other surveyed sectors.
The vast majority of European businesses reckon data volumes will
increase over the next two years, with email being the primary
contributor. "With mounting legislation demanding the retention and
storage of data, not to mention an ever-increasing reliance on
digital information for day to day business transactions, the
security and availability of information is becoming of paramount
importance," said Michael Väth, general manager of Hitachi Data
Systems, EMEA.
"It is no longer enough for firms to have a local storage solution,
however robust. Quite apart from legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley
which requires companies to keep data secure, the dependency on
digital information for daily business transactions means that firms
cannot risk losing access to that information for a prolonged period
of time, let alone losing the actual information itself."
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