IDC's Asia Pacific storage associate vice president for Graham Penn was blunt about the glitch, saying "it shouldn't have happened".

"At least 50 percent of organizations' data is not adequately protected [and] in the event of a major disaster you may not get it back," Penn said. "I'm sorry for them, but every organization should have systems robust enough to withstand a failure. It's a wakeup call for everyone."

Penn said any significant site has had more than adequate warnings that you need to test and test again your backup and recovery procedures.

"Failure to do so results in more costs and loss of time and reputation," he said. "I don't care what the failure was - it all should be included in backup and recovery."

With business-critical data, Penn recommends a semi-automated recovery period of two days be in place, because the "real cost" is between five and 10 times the IT cost in lost time and productivity.