28 May 2009

Cost vs risk for DR

The recession could have led many organisations to rein in their IT expenditure and disaster recovery (DR) may not be immune from such cutbacks.

However, Richard Jones, data centre specialist at the Burton Group, wrote on SearchDataCenter.com that DR should remain a priority for firms, which may find server virtualisation to be of assistance.

Server virtualisation decreases the amount of time required to perform DR functions by more than 50 per cent, he claimed. The number of staff required to carry out DR can also be reduced by almost half.

Deploying DR in this way could therefore save time and money further down the line and be a prudent investment to make, even if IT budgets are restricted.

Regular backups are important and firms may find that "purchasing a support subscription from a Linux distribution vendor still offers savings over commercial products but maintains the peace of mind of having somewhere to turn to in case problems arise", Mr Jones said.

Law.com recently advised enterprises to employ an outsourced professional disaster recovery team so a swift recovery can be made in the event of an emergency.