91 pc SMBs without a DR plan

INDIA: At around 42 per cent SMBs the onus of data protection and recovery lies with IT departments. The growing awareness, need, and importance of disaster planning have led to owners and senior executives (39 per cent) actively participate in its management and execution. nnounced the India findings of its annual 2009 Global SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey. The report reflects the attitudes and practices of small- and mid-sized businesses (SMB) and their customers toward technology disaster preparedness. It also throws light on a large discrepancy between how SMBs perceive their disaster readiness and their actual level of preparedness. The report indicates that natural disasters, virus attacks, malicious employee behavior, and changes in IT infrastructure are key drivers for Disaster Recovery adoption in India.

SMBs are confident in their disaster preparedness plans. 73 per cent of respondents in a Symantec say they are somewhat/very satisfied with their disaster plans, and a 34 per cent say they feel somewhat/very protected in case a disaster strikes.

However, the practices of SMBs reveal that this confidence is unwarranted. The average SMB has experienced three outages within the past 12 months, with the leading causes being virus or hacker attacks, power outages or natural disasters. This is alarming as almost half report they do not yet have a plan to deal with such disruptions. This SMB downtime costs their customers tens of thousands of rupees each year due to which the SMBs can -- and often do -- lose business as a direct result of being unprepared for disasters.

The survey found that only 18 per cent SMBs back up daily and an average SMB backs up only 50 percent of their company and customer data on a daily basis.

Symantec has a

“A startling fact is that though SMB are well aware about outages and their impact. However it hasn’t materialized into their preparedness. While no one wants a disaster to occur, the reality is that they happen and rather than continuing to be unprepared, companies need to take simple proactive steps to protect their information, ,” said Ajay Verma, Director, Channels and Alliances, Symantec India.  “As companies communicate their plans to their customers, they strengthen those relationships and become more of a trusted partner.”

Although 91 percent of SMBs at present do not have formal disaster preparedness plan, of those without plans, nearly 76 percent say they will create one within the next six months.

These outages were impactful as well, with 50 per cent lasting four hours or more.  One in two customers (59 per cent) reported losing a lot of important data. Simultaneously each SMB also refer to material, presentations, whitepapers etc to prepare a recovery plan.