PHILADELPHIA, March 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Disaster Recovery Preparedness (DRP) Council announced today findings from its 2014 annual benchmark study which show that 73% of respondent organizations worldwide are not taking adequate steps to protect their data and IT systems. According to participants, poor planning, testing and technological deficiencies have led to more than $5M worth of critical applications failure, data center outages and data loss.

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Conducted by the DRP Council, the study polled more than 1,000 organizations, from small businesses to large enterprises, to help them benchmark readiness for critical IT systems recovery in virtual environments. Key findings within the Disaster Recovery Preparedness 2014 Annual Report include:

• 64% of respondents surveyed say that their organization's disaster recovery (DR) budget is inadequate and underfunded.
• More than 60% report that they do not have a fully documented disaster recovery plan, and among the minority that does, 23% of respondents have never tested those plans.
• Approximately one-third say that they test their plan only once or twice a year, and more than 65% of those organizations do not pass their own DR tests.
• 78% of respondents have experienced outages of critical applications, and of that group, 63% say that losses ranged from a few thousand dollars to over $5M.                                  
• Of the respondents who have experienced outages, approximately 28% say their organization lost datacenter functionality for up to weeks at a time.

Mitigating the Risk

The majority of respondents surveyed acknowledge their deficiency in disaster preparedness and report that their organization is now planning or revising its implementation strategy. Some organizations have already taken steps to improve their disaster preparedness, employing best industry practices which include:

• Building a comprehensive DR plan to recover applications, networks and business services, including primary and secondary sites.
• Defining recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for critical applications to set proper expectations and assumptions for management and staff.
• Automating frequent recovery testing for critical applications to validate their recovery capabilities within specified RTOs/RPOs.

"Comprised of IT business, government and academic leaders, the DRP Council was formed to increase awareness of DR preparedness and help organizations improve their DR practices," said Council Chairman Steve Kahan of PHD Virtual Technologies. "This benchmark report was assembled to give IT professionals and executive management a better understanding of the risks associated with poor DR planning as well as provide practical advice for how they can better protect their organization's data, applications and networks."

Kahan is scheduled to speak about this topic at Disaster Recovery Journal's Spring World 2014, the industry's largest business continuity conference and exhibit, taking place March 30 – April 2, 2014 in Orlando, Fla. His presentation, titled "The 2014 State of Disaster Recovery Preparedness," will be featured as part of the Solutions Track.

To download a free copy of the State of Disaster Recovery Preparedness 2014 Annual Report please visit www.drbenchmark.org.

About the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council
The DRPC is an independent research group engaged in IT disaster recovery management, research, and benchmarking in order to deliver practical guidance for how to improve Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery. www.drbenchmark.org

Media Contact:
Tracey Frederickson
pr@drbenchmark.org 
781-418-2414

SOURCE Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council