Businesses of all sizes should look at their business continuity plans, with the recent internet outages in the Middle East and Asia serving as a timely reminder, experts believe.

Speaking to SC Magazine Earl Zmijewski, general manager of the Internet Data Division at global monitoring company Renesys, explained that as such events were inevitable it paid for companies to be prepared.

He said: "I think people just have to think in terms of 'what happens if, or not even if, when, I lose critical connectivity'".

Joe Hicks, product manager at F5 Networks told the magazine that business continuity and disaster recovery was a matter of judging risk and conducting a cost benefit analysis.

The recent internet outage was caused by damage to a cable under the Mediterranean Sea. Problems in the effected areas could persist in to next week.

Research for Connect in 2007 found that 88 per cent of UK businesses were interested in Disaster Recovery systems primarily to protect their critical applications and data.