Disaster Recovery Journal Spring 2026

Forrester’s surveys show a vast majority of enterprises use Kubernetes for mainstream enterprise workloads. ... Fewer than one-third of respondents chose to respond to Kubernetes- and AI-related questions, suggesting limited adoption, limited visibility within DR teams, or uncertainty about how these workloads are currently addressed in recovery planning. “

the survey questionnaire. In this survey: n Twenty-nine percent of respondents were from companies that had 0 to 999 employees (which Forrester defines as small and medium-size businesses); 27% had 1,000 to 4,999 employees; 27% had 5,000 to 19,999 employees; and 17% had 20,000 or more employees. n All respondents were decision makers or influencers on their planning and purchasing technology and services related to DR. n Respondents were from a variety of industries. One part of the response set for this study was solicited from a select group of respondents (predominantly DRJ mem bers and Forrester clients) and is therefore not random. These respondents are more sophisticated than the average. They read and participate in business continuity and DR publications, online discussions, etc. They have above-average knowledge of best practices and technology in business continuity/DR. A second set of respondents was solicited based on their professional title in IT, DR, or risk management; this list was randomly generated. Additional responses were solicited via social media on LinkedIn and Twitter for a semiran dom response set. With a combination of random and nonrandom responses, the survey serves as a valuable tool in under standing where both advanced and aver age users are today as well as where the industry is headed. Special thanks to Lauren Nelson, Amy DeMartine, Samishti Bhatia, and Kara Hartig of Forrester Research for their contributions. v “

and technical debt – amplified by hyperscaler automation – can trigger regional failures. Mitigating these risks requires rethinking DR and adopting resilience‑focused practices such as site reliability engineering (SRE), platform engineering, IaC, and chaos engineering. n Resilience-oriented operations practices are gaining traction. Practices such as SRE, platform engineering, IaC, and chaos engineering are well established in cloud native environments and beginning to appear among a small subset of organizations managing on premises workloads. Forrester’s “The State Of Cloud Resilience, 2026” found practices like SRE and platform engineering are gaining traction, especially to improve workload stability and avoid potential outages. While only a limited number of survey respondents reported adopting these practices, their use directionally correlated with more frequent testing and higher self reported recovery readiness. n Address the DR gap in both Kubernetes and AI workloads. Survey questions related to Kubernetes and AI workloads received very few responses, suggesting either

limited adoption, limited visibility within DR teams, or uncertainty about how these workloads are currently addressed in recovery planning. Forrester’s surveys show a vast majority of enterprises use Kubernetes for mainstream enterprise workloads. But container based architecture presents specific challenges for DR, especially for synchronous replication topologies. Fewer than one-third of respondents chose to respond to Kubernetes- and AI-related questions, suggesting limited adoption, limited visibility within DR teams, or uncertainty about how these workloads are currently addressed in recovery planning. Supplemental Material The State of Disaster Recovery Preparedness 2026 survey was fielded globally to IT, DR, and risk profession als with affiliations to Forrester Research and the DRJ as well as to a randomized list of IT, DR, and risk professionals. Additionally, on LinkedIn and Twitter, we solicited responses from technology professionals with responsibility for DR planning. This process generated a total of 95 responses, with 74 indicating they had a DR program and completed the survey. Analysis in this report focused on respon dents who completed relevant sections of

Brent Ellis is a principal analyst with Forrester Research. He is focused on help ing clients find solutions to hard problems like technology resilience, hybrid cloud storage platforms for AI, and modernizing

legacy workloads to unlock business agility. Ellis brings infrastructure and operations experience, empathy for the human elements in technology deployment, understanding of business contexts, and curiosity to every engagement.

18 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | SPRING 2026