Original Research Reveals 7 Data Resilience Priorities Every IT Leader Needs on the 2027 Roadmap

65% of IT professionals say their organization can recover from ransomware within 48 hours. Only 35% have met RPO and RTO targets in actual testing.

That gap between perceived readiness and validated capability defines the central finding of the 2026 State of Data Resilience report — an original market research survey focused on the current pulse of data resilience. Based on responses from more than 200 IT professionals worldwide, the research reveals that confidence exceeds practical proof across ransomware defense, infrastructure management, SaaS protection, and AI adoption.

The data points to seven priorities that carry direct weight for 2027 IT budget and strategy decisions. 

1. Test Data Recovery Before Disaster Strikes

64% of organizations have not demonstrated that recovery posture works under realistic disaster conditions. Nearly one in four (24%) have never tested full recovery at all.

Recovery testing against defined RPO and RTO targets — performed at least annually and after any major infrastructure change — is the foundation on which every other data resilience investment depends. 

Action item:  

• Organizations that have not completed a full recovery test in the past 12 months should treat testing as an immediate priority, not a deferred one. Schedule a full disaster recovery exercise or schedule a health check to see if your data resilience setup is ready to withstand a disaster.

2. Close the Immutability Gap Before the Next Cyber Event

52% of IT leaders responding have experienced a ransomware event. Only 49% have deployed immutable backup storage — the foundational control that prevents backup data from being encrypted or deleted during an attack.

Immutable backup storage is critical because it preserves a clean, recoverable copy of data even when ransomware reaches production systems, giving organizations a recovery path that attackers cannot easily alter, encrypt, or erase.

The overlap between those two numbers leaves a significant portion of organizations exposed to data loss with no reliable recovery path.

Action item:

• Deploy immutable backup protection across on-premises, cloud, and air-gapped environments (including dark sites) to preserve recovery options before the next event occurs.   

3. Protect SaaS-Generated Data Like All Other Data

19% of survey respondents have no SaaS data backup at all. Data protection coverage for SaaS applications beyond Microsoft 365 (63%) drops sharply across other platforms:

• Microsoft Entra ID: 37%

• Google Workspace: 21.0%

• Salesforce: 20.5%

• Microsoft Dynamics: 17.4%

SaaS providers protect service availability; they do not back up individual customer data against accidental deletion, ransomware, or account compromise. As SaaS platforms carry more operational and identity data, backup protection parity with on-premises environments is a business necessity.

SaaS data often matters most in specific, high-pressure moments: restoring a deleted email, retrieving files for legal discovery, or producing design records for a patent dispute. Without dedicated backup coverage, that data may not be recoverable when it is needed most. 

Action item:  

• Extend backup coverage to identity platforms, CRM systems, and collaboration tools to close the SaaS protection gap.

4. Consolidate the Data Protection Toolchain 

Results showed 88.7% of organizations run two or more data protection products. 50.8% manage them workload-by-workload across separate solutions, creating data protection gaps at every boundary.

Simultaneous pressure from hypervisor transitions (72.3% affected) and hardware cost increases (79.0% affected) creates both urgency and opportunity to rationalize the toolchain rather than extend it. 

Action item:  

• Start consolidation onto a primary data protection platform to reduce policy gaps and simplify the operational overhead that fragmentation creates. 

5. Direct AI Investment Toward Anomaly Detection

57.9% of respondents identify AI-based anomaly detection as the highest-value backup and recovery use case yet only 17.4% have deployed it. That 40-point gap between recognized value and actual deployment is the clearest AI investment signal for data resilience teams.

With 90.3% of organizations already engaged with AI in some capacity, organizational readiness is in place. The next step is directing that momentum toward issue detection and early ransomware warning in backup environments. 

Action item:

• Prioritize AI anomaly detection as the first production deployment for data resilience teams evaluating AI investment. 

6. Use Insurance and Compliance as a Planning Framework

Cyber insurance underwriting requirements for immutability, multi-factor authentication, restore testing, and access controls closely mirror the data resilience gaps the report identifies.

34.9% of respondents cited compliance obligations as a top concern. Whether or not cyber insurance is in place, these standards provide a practical, externally validated framework for prioritizing investment. 

Action item:

• Apply insurance and compliance requirements as governance benchmarks for data resilience decisions, even without an active policy. 

7. Align Hypervisor Replacements with Updated Backup Coverage

72.3% of organizations are evaluating or planning hypervisor platform changes, driven primarily by licensing cost increases. Microsoft Hyper-V leads as the planned destination (23.1%), followed by VMware vSphere (12.8%), Nutanix AHV (11.8%), and Proxmox Virtual Environment (10.3%).

Changing platforms requires validating backup agents, policies, and workflows before and after migration. Data protection continuity gaps discovered during a recovery event cannot be addressed retroactively. 

Action item:

• Map backup coverage to the target hypervisor platform and validate data protection continuity before completing any migration. 

See the Full Data Behind the 2027 IT Resilience Priorities

These seven priorities are drawn from the 2026 State of Data Resilience — a research report based on responses from more than 200 IT professionals and leaders worldwide. The full report includes detailed data tables, cross-tabulations, and practitioner commentary.

Download the full 2026 State of Data Resilience Report to benchmark against peers and build a data-driven 2027 resilience strategy.