Free Management Dissertations - The Foregoing Is Also Termed As Loss Prevention Strategies Which Aid In The
The foregoing is also termed as loss prevention strategies which aid in the resumption of IT resources (Andrews, 1990). The function of disaster recovery can be described as the coordinated process of restoring systems, data and infrastructure required to support key ongoing business operations (TechRepublic, 2003). The area of disaster recovery has always been an important component in the business process, and over the past few years the importance of this function has been illustrated by natural disasters as well as other events.
David Smith, a professor at Pepperdine University in California (2003) has stated that there are 4.6 million incidents of lost datathat occur each year. Professor Smith goes on to add that the average cost of each incident is about $25,000 USD (Smith, 2003) and that much of that amount represents the data itself, not the downtime (Smith, 2003). An insurance industry study in this area indicated that (Safeware, 2001):
40% of data loss is attributable to hardware failure,
29% of data loss is attributable to human error.
13% of data loss is attributable to software corruption,
9% of data loss is attributable to theft,
6% of data loss is attributable to computer viruses, and
3% of data loss is attributable to hardware destruction
The preceding percentages were based upon the following:
Table 1 Causes / Episodes of Data Loss
(Computer Industry Almanac, 2003)
PC´s in Use
76.2 million
Causes of data Loss
Episodes of Data Loss
Hardware failure
1,849,800
Human error
1,345,300
Software corruption
588,600
Theft
403,000
Computer viruses
294,300
Hardware destruction
126,100
Total
4,607,100
Severe data loss episodes result in one of two outcomes to their occurrence. The first is that the data is recoverable utilizing the assistance of an individual from technical support, or that the data is lost permanently and must be re-entered (Deveau, 2000). As is the case with all business functions, data recovery is a function of cost, as is the design, development and creation of a disaster recovery plan along with its maintenance and monitoring. And while ongoing maintenance costs are a consideration, it must be remembered that downtime also represents a loss on revenue as well as employee productivity. Depending upon the size of the company, such can run into significant sums of money. For example, the average computer support specialist earns approximately $28.10 USD hourly (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2003) and that the average time that is needed to recover data averages an approximated six hours, thus amounting to an estimated $170. The preceding is true when the company maintains its own in-house specialist.
