Disaster recovery and business continuity have long been important aspects of the cloud, but the survey from security firm, Symantec, shows that the global business market is beginning to accept this on a significant scale.

Over 2,000 companies were questioned as part of the survey, with a number of different technologies and tactics being employed, to counteract the effects of a disaster.

A third of respondents said that they had created an environment which made it possible for employees to work from smartphones, indicating the growing importance of mobile technologies.

Symantec spokesperson, Steve Cullen, said the cloud was making it possible for SMBs to avoid costly downtime which could otherwise result from a disaster. Developing companies are at greater risk of failure if they are denied access to critical systems on a sustained basis, so putting these into the cloud makes it easier to ensure access, regardless of intervening circumstances.

Mr Cullen pointed out that there are a whole range of potential threats facings companies which could cause real problems if they are not properly considered as part of a disaster recovery plan.

As well as natural disasters like floods, or unpredictable events like fires, companies can also be afflicted by issues such as data loss and theft, if mobile devices are misplaced or stolen with sensitive information stored onboard.

The cloud can help keep data safe and secure remotely, which not only means that it is accessible from almost any location, but also allows businesses to keep portable devices free from locally stored details, so that any loss or theft incurs costs based only on the hardware itself.

Thirty four per cent of SMBs questioned said that they had virtualised their servers, with two fifths of firms reporting that they had started to use public cloud platforms to support their work.

Private clouds were a little more popular, with 43 per cent of respondents reporting that such systems were being implemented, although it is likely that many of these firms overlap, resulting in hybrid setups.

In total, the proportion of SMBs that adopted the cloud as a direct result of concerns relating to disaster recovery, was 37 per cent.

A majority of businesses said that they had been able to improve their ability to ensure business continuity as a direct result of things like virtualisation, the cloud and an increased emphasis on mobile and remote working.

There are regular reports of the state of disaster recovery in the world of business, many of which indicate that companies tend to be underprepared for unforeseen events, which could put their operations into irrecoverable turmoil.

However, this study indicates that on an international scale, there is a growing appreciation for the benefits of the cloud when used to combat the threat of disasters, both natural and of man-made origin.

SMBs in the UK are in a good position to take advantage of cloud computing, mobile working and virtualisation, to protect themselves against the impacts of prolonged downtime.

However, it is necessary for companies to put in place the right kind of infrastructure before it is too late, because learning a lesson after the fact may mean that your business is put in jeopardy, which could have easily been avoided with a little forethought. The price of preparing for disasters is far lower than that associated with cleaning up the mess afterwards.

This is information that will, doubtlessly, surprise millions of people, given that his company’s devices have been harnessing high speed networking and digital download services for many years, in order to stay ahead of the competition.

However, Mr Wozniak was keen to point out that this lack of broadband connectivity was not down to any personal preference. Instead, he said that there was simply no way to get online at high speeds in the area which he calls home.

Because Mr Wozniak is based just a kilometre outside of the centre of Los Gatos, his local town, his landline is not able to support the kind of speeds that are required to deliver broadband. Meanwhile, a monopoly on telecoms in the area, means that cable providers have not extended their network, in part also because it would not be financially viable to do so.

Mr Wozniak’s situation is one which is reflected by thousands of businesses and individuals in the UK, where broadband coverage in areas that are outside of the most populated communities can be inadequate or non-existent.

If a company does not have the recourse to invest in expensive connectivity such as bonded lines, or the money to spend on linking its property to the network at high speed, then it will have to rely on a combination of telecoms providers and the government to put this in place.

The importance of broadband access to UK companies was made apparent in a recent survey, commissioned by the Forum of Private Business. Eighty per cent of those questioned said that getting good broadband access was a major concern, putting it in the same league as a reliable energy supply priced affordably.

Broadband is increasingly being seen as an important utility to which all businesses should have access, not a luxury which can be done without.

As a result of the findings of the survey, a number of recommendations were made to the government by the Forum of Private Business. One of the key areas mentioned related to the legislation of services that the government is now beginning to migrate purely to an online space.

For example, experts do not want it to be a legal obligation for businesses to file VAT, which the government now recommends be done via the internet, until such a time as there is near universal access to high speed broadband services across the UK.

The digital divide can impact upon companies and individuals in any location, with the example of Mr Wozniak showing that you do not have to be in a particularly remote area, to suffer from things like line monopolies and inadequate coverage.

Business campaigners are looking to get assurances from the government on a local and national level, that the British countryside will not be left out of the broadband revolution. The jobs created and the economic growth that results from the introduction of high speed business broadband, should be incentive enough to make the necessary investments.

However, it is still necessary for businesses to work hard to ensure that some of the £530 million promised by the government, for rural broadband expansion, is spent in their areas. This is particularly pertinent since some insiders believe that this may not be enough to deliver the speed boosts that many would see as a necessary minimum.

The company has recently completed a £1m investment programme in the subterranean facility, situated within a former Bank of England bullion vault.

This investment has been used to improve Daisy’s infrastructure, increase network capacity and launch its CloudSelect^TM, computing-on-demand, offering.

Will Kennedy, Corporate Sales Director at Daisy, said: “We’ve been hosting data for more than 13 years and have seen the market and the demand for secure storage increase dramatically in that time. The new facilities and space that we have created in our Manchester data centre mean that we’re able to open up our world-class hosting solutions to any kind of business, large or small, that require secure and instant access to their data and applications.”

In addition to being 25 feet below ground, the data centre’s raft of security features also includes two metre thick granite walls and a 60 centimetre bomb blast corridor surrounding the data storage area. It is continuously monitored by 70 CCTV cameras and access is granted only to authorised personnel.

Built in 1999, the data centre currently houses critical data for some of the UK’s largest organisations, with clients including Manchester Airports Group, Racing Post and Trinity Mirror.   

Will said: “Millions of pounds worth of transactions take place online every day and it is facilities like ours that make this possible. We’ve all heard the horror stories and seen the millions wiped off the value of companies when technology lets them down, our data centres offer a cast iron guarantee of absolute security, power, speed and 100% availability – the watchwords of any business operating online today.”

The data centre has an uninterrupted power supply and has three standby diesel generators, which would be triggered in the event of a power failure. It also uses a cooling system to ensure the temperature is kept at an optimum level.

The Manchester data centre is one of four that Daisy operates across the UK, the others being located in London Docklands, Southampton and Jersey.  All centres are connected to Daisy’s national fibre network, which delivers superior bandwidth to give faster response times. There is also access to a variety of additional network security services, ensuring Daisy can protect customer data from any unforeseen attacks.

Mr Marco was apparently onboard a domestic flight in America operated by airline firm Delta, when he tried to use his smartphone to make a mobile VoIP call, presumably using his own company’s service.

However, he was told by members of the flight team that it was illegal for him to make any kind of VoIP call during air travel, as a result of a ruling by the FAA, which is the US aviation authority.

Mr Marco described the situation live via his Twitter account, which was accessible, as the plane he was on offered in-flight Wi-Fi network connectivity. However, the cabin staff maintained that he was obliged to stop making VoIP calls from his mobile.

It was later revealed that the FAA has no such regulations relating to VoIP usage during flights and, instead, leaves it to the discretion of individual airlines, since they are the ones operating the service. There is no risk associated with using VoIP over a Wi-Fi connection in-flight, provided the device is put into airplane mode and other types of connectivity are thus disabled.

When Mr Marco arrived at his destination he was temporarily detained by the police. He later described his experience via email, saying that while reaction to his use of mobile VoIP on a plane was initially hostile, once he had outlined his position and pointed out that the FAA did indeed view such features as safe to use, he was free to go.

Of course Mr Marco is the perfect person to know the ins and outs of the rules about VoIP usage during flights, because it is part of his job. Additionally, if a regulatory body has deemed mobile VoIP safe to use while in the air, there must be another reason for particular airlines insisting upon it being blocked or not used in any way.

Thankfully, many airlines operating across the world are beginning to adapt to the fact that passengers expect to get internet access and the full suite of features that this entails. Using VoIP services from a smartphone, tablet or other compatible device will make it far easier for people to stay in touch while flying thousands of feet above the surface of the earth, whether for business or personal purposes.

There could be an argument that VoIP usage would put a serious strain on the bandwidth of a plane’s network connection, although this could be addressed through additional charges, rather than an outright ban.

From the point of view of politeness, is might be considered that VoIP access could turn plane flights into airborne equivalents of cacophonous commuter train carriages, with everyone talking on their phones.

In reality, the march of progress and the increasing need for people to stay connected at all times will make things like mobile VoIP on airplanes an inevitable feature. The incident involving Mr Marco is evidence that the industry is just experiencing growing pains and needs to develop its own response to the changing nature of mobile technology.

For travellers who do want to use VoIP while in the air, it seems like a sensible idea to familiarise yourself not only with the rules of the aviation authority in your country, but also with the regulations as outlined by the particular airline that you are going to be using. This will help you appreciate what you can and cannot do during a flight.

The Guardian reports that 10 million businesses and homes are now able to connect to its FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) services, well before the end of the year, as had originally been proposed as a cut off point.

The speed of the roll out has been put down to the fact that BT drafted in former members of the armed forces and a large number of engineers, in order to ensure that fibre cabling could reach street level cabinets.

CEO, Ian Livingston, said that there was a degree of complexity involved in the installation of fibre optic business broadband, which could have made it a protracted process. He pointed out that BT had managed to exceed expectations and actually integrate FTTC at a faster rate in the UK, than in any other country.

Around half a million people in the UK now receive FTTC broadband from BT, with over a fifth of this proportion joining up within the last three months, as the roll out efforts really intensified.

The integration of fibre opticc technology into the UK’s broadband infrastructure is far from finished, as this newly established FTTC footprint will eventually be augmented with full FTTP (fibre to the property), further down the line. The ultimate aim is to deliver first 300Mbps connections and eventually 1Gbps speeds, which will completely alter the shape of the digital landscape in the UK.

Of course it is worth pointing out that most of the FTTC work has been carried out in areas that were already able to access the internet at decent contemporary speeds, via ADSL, because BT’s operations are necessarily driven by commercial requirements.

Those businesses that are outside of the more heavily populated areas of the country are still having to campaign for faster broadband connectivity, getting the help of the local authorities and the government in Westminster, in order to realise their dreams of next-generation network speeds.

Internet entrepreneur, Boris Ivanovic, spoke to the Guardian about the state of the UK’s broadband infrastructure, arguing that the FTTC solutions which BT is currently creating may not be enough to allow it to keep up with its other international rivals.

He pointed out that while the UK’s economy is increasingly reliant on web-based services and commerce, our broadband speeds are not keeping pace with this state of affairs. He believes that FTTC will be outdated before the work is complete, with increasing strains on bandwidth necessitating even faster speeds than are possible with this hybrid technology.

Mr Ivanovic contrasts the £1.3 billion which has been allocated to the development of broadband in the UK by the government, against the £17 billion which is set to be spent on the new rail link between Birmingham and the capital.

He argues that this larger pot could easily bring fibre optic broadband to every single business and household in the country, eradicating the need for constant long distance travelling and ultimately making the new rail line irrelevant.

He also identifies that the obvious offshoot of this would be a greener economy, with business fuelled by digital interactions rather than by carbon-generating transport.

Mr Ivanovic is worried that the expense of fibre optic broadband could make it a privilege rather than a basic amenity. It is likely that businesses which are in dire need of faster connectivity will agree with him on this point.

The study, published by Constellation Research, indicates that there has actually been a shift towards mobile within the past 12 months. Just over 60 per cent of those questioned put mobile as the top priority for development this year, compared to almost 52 per cent in 2011.

Meanwhile, cloud computing has fallen into second place, with 56 per cent of respondents citing it as amongst the top three priorities for the coming year. In the same report conducted in 2011, a far higher proportion of nearly 70 per cent were promoting the cloud as the most important concern for contemporary CIOs.

While it is clear that the focus on the cloud has fallen sharply in a relatively short space of time, it is still ahead of Big Data and analytics, which took priority in the opinion of 48 per cent of respondents. Virtualisation was another big loser, dropping from 52 per cent in 2011, down to 29 per cent in 2012.

Part of the reason that CIOs are having to emphasise mobile enablement in 2012-2013, is that they are having to adapt to a market which is increasingly consumerised, with personal devices being brought in by employees and, subsequently, used for business purposes. The result is that enterprises are having to adapt their infrastructures to facilitate this state of affairs, because going against it would be tougher than simply accepting it and learning to harness it securely and effectively.

When it comes to big data and analytics, Constellation Research pointed out that companies are beginning to take an holistic approach. They are choosing to harvest the necessary information upfront and then take the time later on to look for patterns and correlations, rather than setting in place their points of analysis prior to the gathering process.

Even the roll out of the cloud on an enterprise level is feeling the impact of smartphone adoption, because Constellation points out that CIOs are looking to harness the cloud in order to develop application download services which will, in turn, support mobile platforms and drive innovative working environments.

The lowest priority amongst CIOs as identified by the survey was information management, which has been overtaken by other concerns, such as augmented reality and gamification, within the last year. This could either be down to intensifying interest in other areas, or simply because the market has got to the point where worrying about management of information within a business is less necessary, due to the developments of other areas of the market.

There will no doubt be a number of people who are interested to see the switch around which has been pulled by mobile enablement in this year’s study, because the fact that it has knocked cloud computing into second place as a concern amongst CIOs, is certainly significant.

However, it seems that mobile services and the cloud are intrinsically linked, because cloud computing is beginning for form the backbone of business IT, with its flexibility and scalability being used to help run and sustain a whole host of other services, which are also mentioned in the report.

Further down the line, it will be necessary to readdress these issues and establish if the arrival of 2013 and a further 12 months of shifts and alterations will have once more modified the priorities of typical CIOs across the country and the world, to privilege other areas.

Experts believe that with faster business broadband on offer, companies in Northumberland will be able to harness things like cloud computing and VoIP services, which were previously inaccessible, due to sluggish data rates.

The new 40Mbps connections that are already on tap to businesses in the area are expected to reach an even larger number of properties before the end of 2012, with up to 75,000 businesses and individuals predicted to be eligible for the service, according to the Morpeth Herald.

More isolated towns and villages in the county, which were previously hampered due to poor broadband availability, will be getting online at speeds of up to 20Mbps, once the work has been completed.

In 2011, it is estimated that an extra £14 million was generated by Northumberland’s economy as a direct result of improved business broadband accessibility and speeds. This in turn generated 70 new positions of employment in the area, with further infrastructure updates carried out this year sure to have a similarly significant impact.

The work required to update the actual telecoms infrastructure to roll out next generation broadband has its own benefits, because money being invested by BT is helping to sustain positions at companies that are contracted to carry out installation, or supply the products necessary for progress to be made.

Spokesperson, Chris Sayers, said that the ongoing contributions to the Northumberland economy made by BT’s efforts and the resultant benefits of fast business broadband, will continue to bolster performance in the county for the foreseeable future.

Mr Sayers said that while the current roll out of next generation broadband technology was a good start, he was hopeful that the next step would be to introduce similar technology in the more isolated areas, where current broadband availability is limited.

He admitted that this goal would require intervention from the public sector, because private companies like BT cannot be expected to invest in the broadband infrastructure of particular areas, unless it makes good business sense to do so.

Northumberland is one of the many counties in the UK that is looking to secure investments that will help it to update the broadband infrastructure and, consequently, improve its local economy to compete on a national level.

In Staffordshire this month a number of business leaders have been in talks with BT, to help push through the process of next-gen broadband rollout in the area.

A £7.5 million government grant has already been promised, which will go towards introducing broadband to places in the county that would not feasibly be part of BT’s plans under normal circumstances. This pot is to be matched by Staffordshire County Council itself, which makes for a good level of investment that should bring broadband to hard to reach areas.

BT representative, Bill Murphy, was involved in the meetings and he said that things were looking very positive after initial interactions with local businesses. He said that the priority of fast broadband availability had been made clear to him and that this level of enthusiasm and involvement was something that could help to streamline the process.

The past few weeks have seen the launch of major new storage platforms Google Drive, which has entered an increasingly competitive market which is already being courted by a variety of internationally known tech companies.

However, it seems that businesses and individuals could be reluctant to adopt cloud storage services because of the long standing perceptions, which suggest that handing over data to a third party will result in a less secure setup, that also renders access to information a more arduous process than keeping it in-house.

There are many analysts, including Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, who believe that there is scope for the cloud storage industry to expand rapidly in the coming years. However, Mr Enderle also believes that in the short term, growth will be slow until more businesses change their stance on the cloud.

Mr Enderle said in an interview that the reality, at the moment, is that small and medium sized businesses are in a better position to adopt cloud computing for storage and data retrieval, because of the nature of the services that are currently available.

He pointed out that larger corporations may currently feel that there are just not enough options that suit their requirements, although this is an increasingly inaccurate position to maintain, because vendors are now looking to offer more flexible storage solutions, which have a scope that scales to bigger firms.

Mr Enderle said that looking at the market today, you can see cloud storage providers which are able to handle the scrutiny of security audits and actually come out looking far better, than IT providers who develop traditional, in-house storage solutions.

Encryption on a virtual level and physical protection on a real world level allow cloud storage companies to combat the threats that typically face sensitive business data much more effectively than many would assume.

Of course in most cases the bigger companies want to adopt a hybrid approach to the cloud, keeping some information and storage facilities in-house while outsourcing certain elements so that they have the potential to operate dynamically and respond to changing requirements.

Many analysts believe that business leaders and IT managers need to be educated as to the benefits of cloud computing for storage, in order to fight the myths, improve uptake and secure strong long term growth for the industry.

For Mr Enderle, the real issue is that there is a major discrepancy between the consumer and business sides of the cloud storage market when it comes to security. Many enterprises feel that mainstream platforms, like the new Google Drive, are simply not built to take into account the protection which is required in the world of business, which is, for the most part, a relatively accurate point to make.

However, it is once more worth pointing out that there are cloud providers which offer storage solutions that are not made for individual users to store media files and a few word documents, but which are instead created in order to cater to businesses of all shapes and sizes.

While adoption of cloud storage as a service may be slower than the uptake of software as a service, it seems that even those who predict sluggish short term performance in the market, are confident that it has staying power and the potential for making an impact further down the line.

One of the things which RIM CEO, Thorsten Heins, focused on during his keynote speech was the fact that BlackBerry will continue to court the business mobile market for the foreseeable future, creating handsets which offer the best possible typing experience in the industry.

It has been necessary for Mr Heins to reiterate this point because RIM has gone all out to promote its new BB10 OS (operating system), which will be a feature of its next generation smartphones.

This software is far more oriented around touchscreen interactivity than RIM’s past platforms, with prototype handsets built for the BB10 OS showing no signs of having the physical QWERTY keypads for which the range has become known.

Mr Heins did not mince his words, telling the assembled delegates and members of the media, that RIM will be producing phones which feature physical keypads for as long as is necessary, while simultaneously catering to those who want to use onscreen keypads in a context sensitive manner, so that the business mobiles of the future are slim and stylish.

Interestingly, it was asserted by Mr Heins that RIM is chasing the title of world’s best mobile typing platform, for both physical and touchscreen inputs.

While there are few who would debate the fact that BlackBerry smartphones offer excellent typing accuracy and speed via their physical keypads, it could be tougher for the company to crack the touchscreen equivalent because there is far more competition. While most other manufacturers have decided to do away with physical inputs, they have had several years to push forward with tactile typing, where no buttons are actually involved.

Alternative touchscreen typing inputs like Swype have come to alternative platforms and continued to improve the speed and accuracy of text entry on a business mobile.

Meanwhile, companies like Apple have been working on the idea that you will not need to use your fingers to type messages on your mobile in the future. Its Siri voice-controlled digital assistant on the iPhone 4S may not be perfect, but it indicates that it could soon be possible to dictate everything to your smartphone fluidly and without errors, at a speed that cannot be matched by fingers alone.

This state of affairs might be seen as a problem for BlackBerry, since if it lacks its own voice recognition functionality because of its enduring focus on physical and touch-based text inputs, it could end up falling further behind in the market.

Of course in reality, the number of business mobile users who would actually buy a device based on this feature is relatively small and so for the time being, it looks like RIM is putting its focus on the right area of the market.

For business users, the idea of new BlackBerry handsets being offered with physical keypads will be welcome, since editing documents and typing emails using a touchscreen is a far from swift process. Of course if RIM is able to combine the best bits of touchscreen interactivity with an enduring support for physical buttons, then it could strike a balance that allows it to outdo its rivals and recapture its flagging user base.

The hybridisation of smartphone technology gives companies like RIM the ability to appeal to both business mobile users and mainstream consumers at the same time, which makes good sense for a company that is looking to improve its performance.

Mr Sutherland points to the success of Sport Relief, which has helped to raise more than £175 million since it began life a decade ago. He points out that events like this used to be problematic in the past, because they are one-offs, which occur irregularly and can cause problems for anyone looking to develop the IT infrastructure necessary to handle all of the systems that support them.

Not only would developing such an infrastructure be expensive and complicated, but it would also be tough to manage and actually ensure that the donations from members of the public are properly registered, so that people are giving as much as possible with no hiccups.

Thankfully, cloud computing is seen as the perfect answer to this type of problem, according to Mr Sutherland.

It all comes down to the scalability of the cloud, which allows for organisations to account for sudden spikes in capacity, such as those generated by major events like Sports Relief and other charitable initiatives that are of a time-sensitive nature.

If everything was handled in-house, then it might be necessary to run a large server room for months or years at a time, when it is only required for a few days, which is increasingly inefficient. However, by tapping into the cloud, it is possible for charities to enjoy flexible, comprehensive computing power, that can be turned on at will when a campaign is at its peak.

Mr Sutherland, who is chief executive of Carrenza, said that Sport Relief needs to scale up its computing requirements by a factor of 400, while the various events are taking place. However, thanks to the elasticity of cloud computing, it is able to do this without also having to account for its own physical infrastructure during the downtime between fundraising.

Mr Sutherland believes that the next step in the cloud will be portability, with organisations across the business, voluntary and public sectors all being better equipped to deal with the challenges that they face, if they have the support of a scalable IT infrastructure behind them.

Interestingly, it looks like there is still some way to go before the use of online donations by members of the public in the UK is a mainstream activity. At the moment, just seven per cent of the £10.6 billion that is passed on to good causes each year is done so via the web, according to the Giving Green Paper, which was written on behalf of the government.

There is something of a discrepancy between this figure and the 58 per cent of UK consumers who are happy to part with cash via e-commerce sites. As such, the importance of cloud computing will only intensify as charities begin to handle more and more online donations over the coming years.

Mr Sutherland admits that businesses in the commercial sector are currently far more attuned to the significance of the cloud than charitable organisations, largely because they have found it necessary to adopt and adapt far more quickly.

However, he is one of the many people who believe in the ability of the cloud to permeate more and more aspects of society, culture and commerce. From the point of view of charities, this could become a real asset, since the cloud will not only help them to approach fund raising in a more flexible manner, but will also give them the ability to automate the collection of donations and reduce administrative costs.