Disaster Recovery Journal Winter 2024

Is It Time for Industry to Adopt a ‘Gold Standard’ When Testing Disaster Recovery Readiness? By STEPHEN YOUNG C onfidence in your disaster recov ery planning and your data recov ery capability is non-negotiable in today’s business environment where cybersecurity attacks, systems failure and even human error are becoming increasingly frequent. If there is the slightest doubt, it opens the door to potential problems, which need to be identified – and managed accordingly – before disaster strikes. Establishing a well-structured recovery environment to optimize data recovery testing that can be conducted in the least disruptive way to the business, is critical. With poorly structured and unmeasured disaster recovery testing, without full failover potential while conducting tests, severe weaknesses could be hidden when confronted with a genuine disaster sce nario. Proper and through testing is often

deprioritized as organizations try to stay on top of other challenges and the essen tials of day-to-day business. In a recent UK study, one in five senior-level IT pro fessionals admit to testing their data and disaster recovery systems once a year or less. Just 5% of respondents say they test every month. Setting a testing standard The challenge for organizations is that many of today’s technologies deployed to recover systems and data – as the result of a disaster – do not allow for non-disrup tive testing. While elements of testing can be carried out, it can never be thorough enough without significant disruption to the business and, as a result, could deliver a compromised test. Any uncertainty about recoverability then places the commercial viability of a business in jeopardy in the event of a major data disaster.

DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | WINTER 2024 17