Disaster recovery systems seen as essential to safeguard growing Middle Eastern businesses

Today's business world relies on IT, and so it is only sensible that companies take measures to secure their data. It is now also a legal requirement in many countries that companies have a disaster recovery solution. Anything from natural disasters to virus attacks or a complete system breakdown can have devastating consequences on a company's IT system and its operational capabilities.

'Regional companies are recognising the importance of addressing risk management and security issues by investing in information protection and management solutions. Computer system downtime has really dropped significantly due to implemented disaster recovery systems. This is a significant achievement for Middle Eastern business,' said Umar Malik, Vice President of Professional Service at Tech Access.

IT industry watcher Dynamic Markets recently conducted a survey on behalf of storage software vendor Symantec (previously Veritas). The survey revealed that disaster recovery is increasingly taken seriously at the highest corporate levels. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, the number of companies implementing Disaster Recovery doubled in 2004 from 11% to 21%.

Disaster recovery is being taken particularly seriously in the Middle East. According to Dynamic Markets, regional businesses review their disaster recovery plans more frequently -29% review strategies monthly, compared to 17% in the UK and 15% in the US.

More than half of Middle Eastern based companies believe that they would benefit from disaster recovery investment, compared to countries like France and the US where only a quarter of managers planned to invest in a disaster recovery solution.

For those Middle Eastern businesses who have already invested in a disaster recovery plan, the safety net of such a system has proved to be very useful with over 50% of companies surveyed having used elements of their disaster recovery plan at one time or another.

Tech Access provides Symantec disaster recovery solutions to the business community. Symantec Enterprise Solutions produce a range of managed security and disaster recovery products that enable rapid response to IT breakdowns and security breaches.