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Impact of Severe Data Loss on Companies

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Why Some of Them cannot Survive Data Loss?
In this age of knowledge economy where competition has increased to cutthroat levels in every field and there is a mad rush to bring out new products faster than the competitors and take them to the market before everyone else, information technology has come to play a critical role. There is hardly any company today that does not use computers and digital devices to gain an edge over others.

Computers have enormous processing power that is harnessed by a variety of software to execute a wide array of tasks. Information technology has made a fundamental change in the way organisations work. The information flow within an organisation and all its records have been digitised. That is, they reside on desktop computers and servers in a digital form. Every day, organisations churn out and process a lot of data. This huge data can only be stored in hard disks that can have capacities of up to one terabyte.

Hard disks store data on a series of platters arranged vertically. The surface of these platters has a magnetic coating on which the data resides as distinct magnetic patterns. A mobile read / write head is suspended just a hair’s breath above the platter surface, reading and writing the data.

Hard disks are a marvel of engineering. They are precision instruments and there are many things that can go wrong with them. The read / write often crashes on the surface of the platters, scratching them and making data unreadable. This is a very serious hardware error that may jeopardise everything that is stored on the hard disk. Other critical equipment inside the disk – controller card, spindle motor, circuit board – may develop faults too, disabling the entire device and making data inaccessible.

Software errors which may make all data evaporate include accidental deletion of files by the user, virus attack, deletion of hard disk partitions and corruption of system files. Hardware and software errors- both are quite common in the computer world and account for a majority of data loss cases.

However, what poses a real threat to the companies is data loss due to disasters, both natural and man-made. These disasters are not frequent and may be once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but when they arrive, they prove to be a catastrophe, as thousands of companies find out in the world each year. Such disasters include calamities like fire, flood, storms, and cyclones, building collapse, earthquakes, lightning strike, bomb blasts, volcano eruptions and even large-scale sabotage by disgruntled employees.

That is why data backups are crucial. Some organisations do not take data backups at all and live in a state of ignorant bliss. Others take data backups – tape drives are the favourite media – but keep all the archives in the same office. This may be of help when the data loss is localised to a computer or two, but is totally useless when a disaster strikes the premises and the whole building is wiped out, like in 9/11 terrorist incident, or when flash floods inundate the entire office complex, submerging all data devices totally.

Many companies are now increasingly turning toward remote data backups offered by many professional backup services. In this the data backup is taken every day and transmitted across wires to backup servers residing miles away, even on another continent. The backup company, in turn, stores the data at its various offices to guard against a similar disaster occurring on its premises. Remote data backup is the safest and most foolproof way of backing all data of an organisation.

Companies which do not have remote backups and lose all their data and on-site backup in a disaster see their fate hanging in the balance. With data loss, the entire operations of an organisation come to an abrupt and total halt. Employees are unable to work as they cannot access any data they were processing. They spend days sitting idle while their salary meter keeps ticking. Data recovery is a very slow process and if the data to be recovered is huge, the cost is exorbitant since recovery companies charge according to per MB of data recovered. Even then, it is uncertain how much data has been lost permanently and is beyond recovery.

Many companies are unable to bear the monetary losses in terms of lost financial records, customer details and intellectual property, idle employees and high cost of data recovery, and just close down. If you are really serious about data loss and its impact on the company’s future, remote data backup is an ideal solution. Data backup of any kind is better than no backup at all. It hardly costs anything and can be a life-saver in case a disaster strikes the company premises, taking everything down with it.

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<h1>Impact of Severe Data Loss on Companies</h1><br />by jameswalsh<br /><p><b>Why Some of Them cannot Survive Data Loss?</b><br />In this age of knowledge economy where competition has increased to cutthroat levels in every field and there is a mad rush to bring out new products faster than the competitors and take them to the market before everyone else, information technology has come to play a critical role. There is hardly any company today that does not use computers and digital devices to gain an edge over others. </p> <p>Computers have enormous processing power that is harnessed by a variety of software to execute a wide array of tasks. Information technology has made a fundamental change in the way organisations work. The information flow within an organisation and all its records have been digitised. That is, they reside on desktop computers and servers in a digital form. Every day, organisations churn out and process a lot of data. This huge data can only be stored in hard disks that can have capacities of up to one terabyte.</p> <p>Hard disks store data on a series of platters arranged vertically. The surface of these platters has a magnetic coating on which the data resides as distinct magnetic patterns. A mobile read / write head is suspended just a hair’s breath above the platter surface, reading and writing the data. </p> <p>Hard disks are a marvel of engineering. They are precision instruments and there are many things that can go wrong with them. The read / write often crashes on the surface of the platters, scratching them and making data unreadable. This is a very serious hardware error that may jeopardise everything that is stored on the hard disk. Other critical equipment inside the disk – controller card, spindle motor, circuit board – may develop faults too, disabling the entire device and making data inaccessible.</p> <p>Software errors which may make all data evaporate include accidental deletion of files by the user, virus attack, deletion of hard disk partitions and corruption of system files. Hardware and software errors- both are quite common in the computer world and account for a majority of data loss cases. </p> <p>However, what poses a real threat to the companies is data loss due to disasters, both natural and man-made. These disasters are not frequent and may be once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but when they arrive, they prove to be a catastrophe, as thousands of companies find out in the world each year. Such disasters include calamities like fire, flood, storms, and cyclones, building collapse, earthquakes, lightning strike, bomb blasts, volcano eruptions and even large-scale sabotage by disgruntled employees.</p> <p>That is why data backups are crucial. Some organisations do not take data backups at all and live in a state of ignorant bliss. Others take data backups – tape drives are the favourite media – but keep all the archives in the same office. This may be of help when the data loss is localised to a computer or two, but is totally useless when a disaster strikes the premises and the whole building is wiped out, like in 9/11 terrorist incident, or when flash floods inundate the entire office complex, submerging all data devices totally. </p> <p>Many companies are now increasingly turning toward remote data backups offered by many professional backup services. In this the data backup is taken every day and transmitted across wires to backup servers residing miles away, even on another continent. The backup company, in turn, stores the data at its various offices to guard against a similar disaster occurring on its premises. Remote data backup is the safest and most foolproof way of backing all data of an organisation.</p> <p>Companies which do not have remote backups and lose all their data and on-site backup in a disaster see their fate hanging in the balance. With data loss, the entire operations of an organisation come to an abrupt and total halt. Employees are unable to work as they cannot access any data they were processing. They spend days sitting idle while their salary meter keeps ticking. Data recovery is a very slow process and if the data to be recovered is huge, the cost is exorbitant since recovery companies charge according to per MB of data recovered. Even then, it is uncertain how much data has been lost permanently and is beyond recovery.</p> <p>Many companies are unable to bear the monetary losses in terms of lost financial records, customer details and intellectual property, idle employees and high cost of data recovery, and just close down. If you are really serious about data loss and its impact on the company’s future, remote data backup is an ideal solution. Data backup of any kind is better than no backup at all. It hardly costs anything and can be a life-saver in case a disaster strikes the company premises, taking everything down with it.</p> <p></p> <br /><h2>About the Author</h2><p>James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on <a href="http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk">Data Recovery</a> see <a href="http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk" title="www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk">http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk</a></p> <br /><h3><a href="http://www.content4reprint.com/computer/data-recovery/impact-of-severe-data-loss-on-companies.htm" title="Impact of Severe Data Loss on Companies">Article Source:</a> <a href="http://www.content4reprint.com" title="Free high quality articles">Content for Reprint</a></h3>