Press Release (U.K.)

US National Data Awareness Project Launched to Help Businesses Prevent Data Disasters
Asks businesses of all sizes “Are You Remotely Ready?”

London – Monday, December 11th, 2006 -- A consortium of US-based top data storage companies, IT managers, professional development organisations, and distributors today announced a comprehensive educational initiative aimed at helping businesses of all sizes improve the way they protect their operations against catastrophic data loss.

The National Data Awareness Project is based around an educational campaign to enlighten businesses about the human, technical and natural threats that can cause catastrophic loss incidents that have the potential to cripple or kill a business and how to protect against those threats. The project was established to address the wide gap between real data vulnerabilities and existing data protection practices at businesses of all sizes, ranging from one-man shop home businesses to global enterprises. The companies involved in the launch of this project whose theme is “Are You Remotely Ready?” are Asigra Inc., Bell Micro, Breece Hill, Data Protection Services LLC, Office Depot, PowerFile, ProStor Systems, and Yosemite Software, and ZeroWait, as well as the Data Management Institute, host of the semiannual Disaster Recovery and Data Protection Summit.

Jon William Toigo, founder of the Data Management Institute and a widely-published expert on data protection and disaster recovery issues, leads the consortium. Toigo is also a well-respected storage journalist and noted author of 14 books on information technology, including what some critics regard as the Bible of storage technology – The Holy Grail of Data Storage Management and several editions of Disaster Recovery Planning, a practical guide to business continuity planning used by organisations throughout the world.

Toigo’s company also sponsored The Disaster Recovery and Data Protection Summit held at the end of May in Tampa, FL, featuring keynote speakers whose businesses were impacted by last year’s severe Gulf Coast hurricane season.

Despite events in recent years such as 9/11, massive power outages and the devastation of the Gulf Coast hurricanes, an alarming number of businesses still fail to adequately protect their data assets. A University of Texas study found that 43 percent of companies experiencing a catastrophic data loss never recover, and half of them go out of business within two years. According to DTI/Price Waterhouse Coopers, 70 percent of small firms that experience a major data loss go out of business within a year.

The impact of lost data has a major drain on the economy, both in terms of reduced productivity and actual job loss as companies go out of business. According to International Data Corp., data loss incidents cost the U.S. economy $12 billion per year. That type of economic impact and the reality of recent disasters have raised data protection concerns with politicians nationwide, to the point where the states of Florida, Louisiana and California have joined with the NDAP.

Since virtually any location can be at risk, the NDAP is asking local government representatives to join in this initiative to encourage their constituents to ensure business continuity.

The NDAP will help businesses of all sizes develop a systematic approach to evaluating their current data protection and DR capabilities, look for weak spots in those existing plans and choose the optimal data protection products, technologies and services to minimise or eliminate their exposure to potential data loss. This information can be found at: http://ndap.datainstitute.org.

“Storage vendors have unleashed a plethora of data protection tools and service options from backup software, tape libraries, CDs and DVDs, with the latest being removable disk, for home business and small businesses to remote office/branch office backup for SMBs and enterprise customers, yet most businesses are still woefully unprepared for a disaster,” said Toigo. “The best protected data is data that is backed up and taken offsite so that it can be restored from a location not affected by an act of nature or terror. Clearly, more effort is required to educate users, IT managers, and small business owners to identify and patch their data vulnerabilities. The National Data Awareness Project was built around those objectives and to ensure that businesses are remotely ready.”

“The most important thing for businesses to remember in developing a disaster prevention plan is that the issue is not data backup; the issue is data recovery,” said Eran Farajun, executive vice president, Asigra (www.asigra.com). “The critical factor when a disaster strikes is how quickly the business can restore access to key data and resume operations. The best way for businesses to be remotely ready when a disaster strikes is with backing up data online to a geographically remote backup site that is immune from any local or regional disasters using a backup service provider.”

Office Depot is no stranger to the business risks of natural disasters. The company is headquartered in South Florida and has 60 Gulf Coast area stores. After experiencing four major hurricanes last year, the company launched a practical advice and solutions campaign on www.officedepot.com to help businesses deal with disruption (www.officedepot.com/getprepared). According to Tom Serio, Director of Global Business Continuity Management for Office Depot, the most valuable advice for business continuity is to get prepared and have a plan in place. “It doesn't have to be a million dollar solution, just a common sense plan,” Serio said. “The overarching principle in disaster planning and recovery is to protect your most valuable and irreplaceable assets: your people and your data.”

“A good data recovery plan that meets the needs and budget of business owners is essential in the world we live in,” said Gary Gammon, senior vice president of marketing for Bell Microproducts. “It is vital for business owners to make sure they are prepared for the day they hope never comes – the day they have to recover from a major data disaster. Sound advice for effective recovery planning includes backing up data to a disk and replicating the backed up data at an offsite location. Taking these essential steps can ensure a quick and painless recovery, saving a business time, money and even its existence.”

Perhaps no company is better able to address data protection issues during a major catastrophe than Data Protection Services, an online backup provider with a data centre in New Orleans. “Our goals during and after Hurricane Katrina were two-fold,” said CEO Jeff Danos, “First, we had to keep our operations running for the vast majority of our clients who were unaffected by the storm, and also had to assist many clients who lost or who could not access their data. Both goals required extraordinary measures on our part.” Added Danos, “We even put out a call to our unaffected clients to donate laptops, and they responded. We restored client data to the laptops, and clients who lost everything were able to pick up a laptop containing their business data at no charge. Since 1996, we have done our best to educate companies about how to best protect their data. Danos noted, “Unfortunately, for some companies it took a catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina to recognise how vulnerable their data is.”

For further information about the National Data Awareness Project, contact Jon Toigo: jtoigo@intnet.net.