Worries that a firm would not survive long without its IT systems functioning are at the forefront of most IT managers' minds, a new survey has shown.

According to research by BridgeHead Software, disaster recovery was cited as a major concern for almost six out of ten IT bosses in the UK and North America.

However, other worries also hold significant sway in the decision made by managers, such as remote working, outsourcing and data archiving.

Tony Cotterill, chief executive officer and president of BridgeHead Software, highlighted the latter, saying: "There has been a clear movement over the last few years to make data highly available and rapidly recoverable to support electronic business applications.

"But now there is real momentum building up behind archiving as the data volumes on primary storage have grown out of control."
Storing archival data securely can both protect the business from seizing up following a disastrous event and allow improved access to the data if necessary as it has been organised and separated out from the main storage system.