Reality:
Most companies still trust that they can recover their business systems off
tapes or through a subscription to an incomplete "copy just your key data to an
off-site" service. Clearly the statistics suggest they're inadequate (indeed Microsoft have removed their native tape backup software in Server 2008) and yet the
majority of businesses continue to hope/expect they will be their deliverance.
The fairly self-evident but uncomfortable question has to be:
When was the last time you saw your back-up solution test
restored onto another server?
Are you at High Risk?
Small to medium sized businesses simply don't have the time or
resources to actually cross-check their IT resilience. Even though your
IT support is checking your back-up logs every night and you've seen
sample files restored, this isn't the same as a complete recovery of
your business onto a new server (as it will have a different System
State and tape drive). And what would you do if you couldn't even use
your offices? When a DR situation does occur, this untested approach
makes the 80% statistic become very real.