Virtual backup practices are found worryingly lacking
SCHAFFHAUSEN, Switzerland, 12 April 2012 - According to
the Acronis Global Disaster
Recovery Index 2012, the financial services sector has pushed
disaster recovery to the top of its IT agenda as a result of the
wide spread natural disasters of 2011. However, compliance,
security and virtual server protection remain big concerns for the
industry.
The Acronis survey of almost 6,000 small and medium-sized
businesses (SMB) in 18 countries showed that 60% of financial
services globally implemented a full-scale business continuity plan
in 2011. As a result, the financial services sector is the most
confident industry in its backup and disaster recovery processes.
On average, the sector spends 12% of its overall IT budget on
disaster recovery.
Despite this move towards more stringent processes, virtual
backup practices lack with a fifth (19%) of financial organisations
stating they don't back up their virtual servers as often as their
physical ones. And over half (55%) back up their virtual servers
infrequently (on a weekly, monthly or irregular basis). This is
surprising when most stated that the monetary value of data on
their virtual servers is equal to that held on their physical ones.
With trust being imperative in this industry, it's vital that
organisations treat their virtual servers with the same care as
their physical servers.
IT mangers within financial service organisations are also
highly concerned about the security risks of backing up data to the
cloud, with 47% citing security as the key barrier to entry. Lack
of confidence in cloud providers as well as non-compliance with
data protection laws are also concerns. As a consequence, 45% of
companies are relying on taking a tape or disk offsite at the end
of each day as their offsite disaster recovery strategy.
The finance industry is, however, the most likely to consolidate
the number of tools it is using for disaster recovery, with 44% of
IT managers stating that they only use one solution. Such
consolidation can save costs, reduce risk and increase efficiency.
In fact, 77% of those surveyed stated that the availability of one
disaster recovery solution for physical, virtual and cloud
environments would be the best way to improve their disaster
recovery.
"IT managers within financial services state that the biggest
threat to their disaster recovery strategy is complacency. Because
they have not experienced data loss before, they don't see it as a
threat," said David Blackman, General Manager Northern Europe and
MEA, Acronis. "While the industry's tactics are sound on paper, it
needs to wake up and realise that sometimes even Barcelona
lose."
Notes to the editor:
The survey was conducted by the Ponemon Institute across 18
countries in September and October 2011. Over 6,000 IT
practitioners were surveyed in small- to mid-market organisations
with no more than 1,000 seats. Details of how the index was
calculated and where each country appears can be found here:
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About Acronis:
Acronis is a leader in AI-native cyber protection, unifying data protection, cybersecurity, IT operations and hybrid infrastructure to deliver business continuity, security and compliance with less cost and complexity. More than 21,000 service providers trust Acronis to protect over 750,000 businesses in 150 countries. Acronis is headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. For more information, visit www.acronis.com.