Disaster recovery unwrapped...

During the spring of 2006, Continuity Central, in partnership with SteelEye, conducted a detailed survey into business continuity practices across the world. Part one of the results, focusing on business and IT continuity aspects of the survey was published on 14th June. Part two of the results, published below, gives the results in relation to disaster recovery practices.

Respondents to the Business Continuity Index survey were asked whether their organizational business continuity plan include a remote disaster recovery site. Overall, 86.6 percent of respondents said that 'Yes' their business continuity plan included such provision. This was consistent when comparing Europe (85%) and North America (90%).

The next section of the survey looked at disaster recovery facility geography, asking where DR facilities were located relative to the organization's production site(s). The overall results were as follows:

Which of the choices best describes the relative locations of your production site(s) and your disaster recovery site(s)?	Response Percent
Within the same city	29.2%
Within the same state	23.9%
Within the same country	53.1%
Across different countries	7.1%

When Europe and North America are compared, some distinct differences emerge. As can be seen in the tables below, organizations in Europe are much more likely to have both their primary and recovery facilities located in the same city. This may be due to the greater propensity for wide area disasters in the North American continent.

NORTH AMERICA	Response Percent
Within the same city	21%
Within the same state	22.6%
Within the same country	66.1%
Across different countries	3.2%

When it comes to recovery technologies, further regional differences emerge:

Firstly, respondents were asked whether their organization has implemented an automated data replication solution between its primary production site and its disaster recovery site. Overall 64.6% of respondents had done this. However, only 59.7% of North American organizations had implemented an automated data replication solution, compared to 78.8 percent of European organizations.

A similar trend could be seen when it comes to failover solutions.

Respondents were asked 'Have you implemented an automated failover cluster solution between your primary production site and your disaster recovery site?'. Overall 35.7 percent had, but this fell to just 29 percent in North America, and rose to 59.7 percent in Europe.

The above results would seem to imply that many North American organizations are sticking with tried and trusted traditional disaster recovery solutions, while Europeans are more willing to push the envelope and implement new technologies with the aim of enhancing disaster recovery performance.

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•Date: 27th June 2006 • Region: UK/N.America/World • Type: Article •Topic: BC stats
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