Disaster Recovery Journal Spring 2024

M any businesses understand the need for disaster recovery capabilities, but adoption and implementation of various practices and capabilities are mixed. Forrester Research and the Disaster Recovery Journal (DRJ) have partnered to field a number of market studies in busi ness continuity and DR to gather data for benchmarking and to guide research and publica tion of best practices for the industry. This study, which focuses on DR preparedness, was first fielded in the fall of 2008 and then again in 2011, 2013, 2016, 2020, and 2022. We designed the 2023 study to determine organizational confidence in DR preparations and preparedness; the drivers fueling continued improvement in DR preparedness; organizational practices regarding DR program governance, planning, plan maintenance, and testing; how organizations provision and architect their data center recovery sites; current recovery objectives and technology adoption; and the integration of cloud-native and software-as-a-service (SaaS) workloads into DR planning.

Nearly All Businesses Do Some Form of Disaster Recovery Planning Our 2023 survey revealed businesses recognize the need for a DR strategy and capabilities, with more than 90% having some sort of DR program. Only about half of respondents plan for disaster recovery at the enterprise level in a centralized pro gram, and just under 11% of respondents plan for DR in localized silos (see Figure 1). The survey also found more than 70% of respondents allocate between 0% and 10% of their total IT budget to DR. Almost 30% spend more. Previous surveys have found businesses overwhelmingly see DR as a critical priority, with 24/7 business activities as a top driver, but integration of those priorities into overall business strat egy is still lagging. DR Primarily Belongs To I&O, But Risk Professionals Are Increasingly Involved DR planning and strategy still falls pri marily to IT, with about 45% of respon dents saying their head of DR is part of infrastructure and operations (I&O) (see Figure 2). Silos still exist though, and they’re difficult to overcome. For large enterprises which consist of different business units, the loosely coupled silo approach remains pragmatic. However, we’re seeing movement toward a more practical federated model where overall governance, strategy, policy, processes,

and standards are set by a strong corporate group, especially risk management pros. Local planners then customize specific plans for their region or business unit. But these changes aren’t happen ing quickly enough. Our study revealed:

DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | SPRING 2024 9