According to a survey carried out for ATM S.A., Poland's largest data center operator, more than a half of firms have experienced problems with access to the Internet or power supply. As a result, 41% of firms have had to suspend or severely restrict their operations.

'It doesn't affect me, the risk of disaster is small' - this opinion is shared by many businesspersons when asked about matters of security. After all, extreme weather conditions are rare in Poland, and the country is not a major target for cybercriminals. The fact that dangers nonetheless occur was made clear in March of this year. As a result of a fire on Warsaw's Łazienkowski Bridge and damage to fiber-optic cables, many firms were left without access to the Internet for many hours. It turns out that situations of this type are an everyday occurrence in Polish business. More than one-half (54%) of managers surveyed by ATM S.A. admitted that their firms had experienced problems with access to the Internet or power supply, most of them (52%) in the past six months. Notably, in most cases these were not incidents lasting only for a short time. Only in 6% of cases did the fault persist for less than one hour. In 30% of cases it lasted for between one and two days, and in 10% of cases for even longer. As many as 41% of respondents said that in such circumstances their business had had to suspend or restrict its operations.

'Situations like this generate losses, even if just due to inability to perform services and fulfill orders, while sometimes they also involve loss of data and damage to reputation,' notes Tadeusz Czichon, CEO of ATM S.A. 'We live in an online age, with instant bank transfers, e-shopping and information available 24 hours a day. In such a situation a suspension of operations, even for just a few hours, may have disastrous results for any business, regardless of whether it is a bank, an e‑store or an accounting firm. Customers expect rapid contact and uninterrupted access to services. This applies regardless of the size of a business or the sector in which it operates,' he adds.

The company's research shows that problems result above all from firms' low level of awareness. Although 78% of managers consider continuity of access to data to be an extremely important matter, as many as 75% of them are unfamiliar with the concept of Business Continuity Management. Almost as many, 64% of all respondents, are not aware of the concept of a backup office. The method of protection most often applied by companies is the use of UPS and the storage of data on local servers. Backup office services are used by only 17% of the firms surveyed.

'This is not many, but over the past few years we have nevertheless seen a change for the better. Until recently the main customers for backup office services were those firms that are subject to a legal obligation to have emergency procedures in place. Although investment in security remains the domain of large corporations - telecommunications companies, banks, financial institutions - the area is coming to be of interest to smaller and smaller organizations,' explains Jacek Krupa, Vice President of ATM S.A. 'Our backup office service is now also being used by firms that need just a few working positions, or a dozen or so, and not necessarily hundreds. Interestingly, our first deployment of a backup office in connection with an actual emergency at the customer's main office was carried out not for an international corporation, but for a medium-sized firm,' he points out.


ATM S.A. is the WSE listed Polish data center market leader as well as an expert in security of data transmission and processing. Under the ATMAN and Thinx Poland brands the company provides colocation, hosting and cloud computing services in its data centers with 13,600 sq m (146,400 sq ft) of the total space. Using own international links and fiber-optic networks in the largest Polish cities, ATM offers broadband IP services including Internet access and data transmission. Major recipients of the services are telecommunications operators, traditional media, Internet portals, financial institutions, commercial and industrial companies. More information at www.atm.com.pl.

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