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Survey Says: Government IT Pros Weigh In on Disaster Recovery

A recent survey of Government Technology readers reveals that most IT staff feel there's room for improvement in their organization's disaster recovery plans.

Many state and local government IT professionals lack confidence in their disaster recovery and business continuity plans, according to a recent Government Technology survey. A poll of 164 senior-level officials found that nearly 60 percent of respondents rated their plans as average or worse — including 6 percent who said they have no plan at all.

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The relatively low confidence in disaster recovery capabilities may be tied to a lack of testing. Although 46 percent of respondents said they test their procedures, 34 percent do not and 20 percent don’t know if they do. Of those conducting regular tests of disaster recovery and business continuity plans, most do so annually. Respondents listed a number of barriers to conducting regular disaster recovery tests — the most common being lack of organizational willingness (49 percent) and lack of funding (40 percent). Complexity of the plans themselves was cited by 35 percent of respondents, suggesting a high degree of dissatisfaction with current procedures.

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The importance of having both workable disaster recovery/business continuity plans and testing them regularly is reflected in the fact that unplanned data loss is a relatively common occurrence. Nearly half (48 percent) of survey respondents said they’d experienced such an event within the past year.

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Noelle Knell is the executive editor for e.Republic, responsible for setting the overall direction for e.Republic’s editorial platforms, including Government Technology, Governing, Industry Insider, Emergency Management and the Center for Digital Education. She has been with e.Republic since 2011, and has decades of writing, editing and leadership experience. A California native, Noelle has worked in both state and local government, and is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, with majors in political science and American history.