Natural disasters happen and for some regions like Asia, they happen at a higher frequency. Because of this, a common perception has arisen that companies located in Asia have a higher state of alert and are better prepared. Events in the past year along with a recent report have highlighted that while companies do have Disaster Recovery (DR) plans in place, they may not be as organized as they need to be, which is something companies can learn from.
A report published by the EMC corporation in the summer highlights the current state of Disaster Recovery in Asia. The report takes an in-depth look at IT spending and the views of IT decision makers on Disaster Recovery in the Asia Pacific Region – South East Asia, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and India.
The findings of the report are interesting considering current socioeconomic and natural conditions in the region. Asia, to date, has been largely unaffected by the negative economic conditions in both Europe and North America. According to the Q2 2012 Asia Job Index report released by Robert Walters, the number of IT positions advertised in major regions has grown across all sub-regions in Asia.
The most impressive countries were: Japan which saw IT postings achieve a quarter-on-quarter growth of 8%, compared to a country-wide quarter-on-quarter average decrease of postings across all industries of -4.6%. Malaysia is the other IT star, seeing IT positions grow 24.2% quarter-on-quarter, compared to a nation wide average growth of postings across all industries of 13.4%. On comparison, the whole Business Services Industry, including IT, in the US, achieved a growth of approximately 11%.
These figures for Asia show that companies in the region are investing in IT services and positions. The EMC’s findings parallel this, noting that many companies are investing more on DR possibly due to the relatively high number of disasters, natural or otherwise, affecting the region in the past year. On average, companies invested 11% of their IT budget on DR plans. Companies in North America spend between 2% and 4% of their annual IT budget on DR plans. This is a big difference, but is it paying off?
Looking deeper into the survey it can be noted that in the past year, 47% of respondents saw some form of data loss. The average amount of data lost was 484GB. Malaysia and India were hardest hit with an average loss of 1,099GB and 713GB lost, respectively. The top three reasons for loss were reported as being due to: data corruption (58%), hardware failure (50%) and loss of power (35%).
Despite the larger spending, the information reveals that many companies in Asia may not be spending their DR budgets wisely. Almost half of companies have experienced negative effects from some kind of emergency they likely could have prepared for.
In this region, and in all regions, the amount of data available to, and stored by companies is growing exponentially. If this trend of inadequate spending continues, companies will stand to see loss of data compounded.
We highly recommend that you take this information into account when developing your DR plans, and ensure that your budgets are properly allocated. For help with adopting the right DR strategy please contact us, we may have an effective plan that meets your needs.
