Podcast
Kafka Disaster Recovery: Why It Fails in Practice
Replication is not the hardest part of Kafka disaster recovery. The operational complexity is. Learn why DR breaks down and how to make recovery predictable.
March 16, 2026 Watch Now
Speakers
Andy Allison VP of Product
Christoph Schubert Senior Product Manager
Most Kafka teams believe they have disaster recovery covered. Replication is running, a backup cluster exists, and there is a runbook somewhere.
But when a real incident happens, recovery often takes hours. In this session, Andy Allison and Christoph Schubert discuss why Kafka DR often breaks down in practice and what teams can do to make recovery predictable and repeatable.
What You'll Learn
- Why replication alone does not solve Kafka disaster recovery
- The operational challenges behind Kafka failover
- Common DR failure modes such as configuration drift and client coordination
- How platform teams structure DR to recover in minutes instead of hours
- Practical ways to evaluate your current Kafka DR strategy