SCHAFFHAUSEN, Switzerland, 4th March, 2009 -Research carried out by Acronis reveals that over one-third of UK schools (37%) are sitting on a data loss time bomb that puts everything from pupil's coursework, teacher's lesson plans and electronic school records at risk because they do not have a full data backup and recovery policy in place. As a result, in the last twelve months, one in ten (7%) UK schools have suffered an IT failure from which they were unable to recover their data.
The survey also reveals that over half (57%) of respondents think that the credit crunch may impact significantly on the budget for their school's backup and recovery solutions during 2009. This could mean many schools will risk going without data backup and recovery solutions - potentially impacting on exam pass rates and the school's reputation. Alternatively, they will need to find budget from elsewhere to ensure all their digital assets remain protected, should the worst happen.
Kevin Moreau, general manager of Acronis UK & Ireland, said: "Education organisations are increasing their reliance on IT resources - and therefore increasing the volume of their digital data. This means that the chance of a data loss, along with the size, scale and seriousness of a disruption, is rocketing and just like any other organisation, they are vulnerable in the event that their data is wiped by a virus or accidently erased."
Moreau concludes: "In the current economic climate, education establishments should be seeking software that doubles up to provide efficient data backup and recovery as well as protection from PC viruses. With 51% of schools suffering from severe system downtime each year, tools such as disk imaging software provide an extremely cost-effective solution that ensure a secure backup, but also offer the ability to roll back in time to the system's last 'good state', if they are hit by a virus outbreak."
This survey was taken from a sample of 127 IT decision makers in the education sector. The interviews were conducted face-to-face in January 2009.
About Acronis
Acronis is a global provider of storage management software that enables corporations and individuals to move, manage and maintain digital assets. Acronis sells innovative solutions for disaster recovery, server consolidation and virtualisation migration, which allow users to maintain business continuity and reduce downtime in computing environments. Acronis software products are sold in more than 180 countries and are available in 15 languages. For additional information, please visit www.acronis.co.uk
About Acronis:
Acronis is a global cyber protection company that provides natively integrated cybersecurity, data protection, and endpoint management for managed service providers (MSPs), small and medium businesses (SMBs), and enterprise IT departments. Acronis solutions are highly efficient and designed to identify, prevent, detect, respond, remediate, and recover from modern cyberthreats with minimal downtime, ensuring data integrity and business continuity. Acronis offers the most comprehensive security solution on the market for MSPs with its unique ability to meet the needs of diverse and distributed IT environments.
A Swiss company founded in Singapore in 2003, Acronis has 15 offices worldwide and employees in 50+ countries. Acronis Cyber Protect is available in 26 languages in 150 countries and is used by over 20,000 service providers to protect over 750,000 businesses. Learn more at www.acronis.com.