Virtualisation, cloud complicate disaster recovery
By
15 Dec 2010
15 Dec 2010
MANILA, PHILIPPINES, 15 DECEMBER 2010 -- The good news is that large companies see the merits in virtualisation. The bad news is that not many companies are protecting their virtualised environments well enough.
This good news-bad news describes what is happening in Singapore according to a recent study by security firm Symantec.
Known as one of the technology leaders in the region, Singapore companies are usually the early adopters of new technology. But when it comes to disaster preparedness, a recent Symantec global report noted that companies’ virtualised environments are not protected.
New technologies
“While organisations are adopting new technologies to reduce costs, they are adding more complexity to their environment and based on the Symantec Disaster Recovery Survey, more than half of Singaporean organisations are not protecting the new virtual environments they create,” said Tan Yuh-Woei, country manager, Singapore, Symantec.
The study involving large companies in Singapore revealed that 65 per cent of companies do not include their virtual environments in their disaster recovery plans. Symantec said this is significantly up from only 50 per cent of respondents surveyed in 2009.
More than half do not regularly back up even if some of their mission-critical applications and data are in a virtual, rather than physical, environment.
The few companies that have some kind of disaster recovery plan – one in 10 respondents – use replication and failover technologies respectively to protect virtual environments.
Cloud
The study also noted that companies run about 50 per cent of their mission-critical applications in the new cloud computing environment. But even if they are early adopters, 35 per cent of respondents said one of the challenges they face in adopting the new trend is the ability to control failovers. Twenty-four per cent also noted that their concern is the ability to back-up in cloud.
Symantec was not quick to find fault on these companies as they noted that virtual environments, including cloud, are much more complex than the traditional physical computer set-up.
Symantec said IT managers need different tools to manage and protect data and applications in a virtual environment compared to a physical environment.
Added Tan: “While we expect to see further consolidation in the industry of these tools, data centre managers should simplify and standardise so they can focus on fundamental best practices that help reduce downtime.”
Global report
Singapore’s disaster preparedness was included in Symantec’s 2010 Symantec Disaster Recovery Study done in October but released last month. The country reports have only become available recently.
The Singapore study covered 100 enterprises out of the 1,700 enterprises surveyed worldwide. Singapore was the only Southeast Asian country included in the telephone survey. The other Asian countries included China, India, Japan and South Korea. The enterprises involved in the worldwide study were those with 5,000 or more employees.
Tags: Disaster recovery
- wong chee tat :)
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