Disaster Recovery

In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks, disaster recovery is on everybody's minds. But judging from the results of a survey of more than 250 top IT executives conducted after Sept. 11, most businesses are already involved in the process to some degree. A significant percentage of respondents already have DR plans, and CIOs are reasonably dedicated to reviewing and testing them. Still, there's work to be done. Many companies' DR activities have significant holes. And some companies still treat certain key areas, such as preventing malicious security breaches, creating redundant systems and lining up backup network providers, as a relatively low priority.

Of the 258 technology executives we surveyed—all of them CIOs, CTOs or vice presidents of IS, IT, networking or communications—79 percent already have disaster recovery plans in place. That number rises to 84 percent among companies with reported annual revenues greater than $20 million, while 70 percent of their smaller-company counterparts have plans.

Given the importance of the topic, DR budgets aren't exactly fat. About two thirds of companies with annual revenues of more than $20 million reported DR budgets of less than $500,000 per year. However, considering that more than half of such firms reported daily potential losses in excess of $100,000, a healthy DR budget seems a small price to pay to avoid major outages.