According to research by the University of Texas, only 6% of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss survive, while 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years.

Why consider disaster recovery?

More than one-third of organizations have executed DR plans.

Contrary to what some may believe, disaster recovery plans are not documents collecting dust on shelves. For example, in 2008 one-third of organizations surveyed had to execute their disaster recovery plans due to a variety of factors including:

Hardware and software failure (36% of organizations)

External security threats (28% of organizations)

Power outage/failure/issues (26% of organizations)

Natural disasters (23% of organizations)

IT problem management (23% of organizations)

Data leakage or loss (22% of organizations)

Accidental or malicious employee behavior (21% of organizations)

Given the regularity of events that cause downtime, IT organizations should expect that their DR plans will be tested at some point in the future.

International Data Corp. estimates that companies lose an average of $84,000 for every hour of downtime. Strategic Research puts the cost of downtime at close to $90,000 per hour.

According to a recent Touche Ross study, the survival rate for companies without a disaster recovery plan is less than 10%!