Building Radical Resilience: Why Federal Agencies Must Benchmark Data Maturity Now

Mission Continuity Hinges on Effective Data Resilience

Federal agencies must safeguard mission-critical data amid growing cyber threats, evolving regulatory compliance requirements, and increasingly complex, hybrid IT environments. Whether potential disruption stems from ransomware, insider error, or cloud service provider downtime, resiliency matters most when operational continuity is at risk to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of mission-critical data.

Realistically, many agencies believe they are more resilient than they are. Veeam’s Data Resilience Maturity Model (DRMM) revealed that over 30% of organizations overestimate their resilience, and 74% have significant data recovery risk exposure. For government agencies tasked with protecting sensitive citizen data and ensuring national security, that margin for error is simply too high.

Understanding the Veeam Data Resilience Maturity Model

Developed in partnership with McKinsey & Company and informed by thought leaders from MIT, Palo Alto Networks, and Splunk, the DRMM gives organizations a data-driven way to measure, benchmark, and improve their data resilience posture. This maturity model comes at a critical time, as Veeam’s 2025 Ransomware Trends report discovered that 40% of federal agencies’ backup repositories targeted by ransomware were modified or completely deleted.

Unlike traditional backup frameworks, the DRMM recognizes that modern resilience is not a technology problem alone, but rather a strategic discipline that blends people, processes, strategy, and technology into one integrated approach. According to Veeam’s 2025 Ransomware Trends report, 60% of U.S. Federal Agencies say that significant improvements or a complete overhaul is required to achieve alignment between security and IT teams.

The DRMM framework helps agencies:

• Evaluate how well they can prepare for, withstand, and recover from disruptions.
• Identify maturity gaps across six technology domains: backup, recovery, architecture & portability, security, and reporting & intelligence.
• Standardize execution and empower teams with defined workflows, cross-functional collaboration protocols, and training for rapid recovery.
• Build a roadmap to strengthen resilience in alignment with mission objectives and compliance mandates.

The Four Horizons of Data Resilience Maturity

The DRMM defines four progressive maturity horizons — each representing an agency’s ability to ensure resilience and continuity for their IT-reliant mission processes:

1. Reactive & Manual (Basic)
   Agencies operate with fragmented tools and manual recovery steps, likely discovering gaps mid-crisis. There are significant opportunities for improvement.
2. Reliable but Limited (Intermediate)
   Teams are executing fundamental recovery processes but rely heavily on human intervention, slowing response times. There is much to be improved upon, but the agency may lack awareness about what is possible and what are the next best steps.
3. Mature and Adaptive (Advanced)
   Agencies start integrating strategy, automation, and analytics to improve response coordination and reduce risk exposure. They are pivoting from reactive and tactical to proactive and strategic with better people, processes, and have a path towards measurable outcomes/benefits.
4. Self-Optimizing (Best-in-Class)
   The most resilient agencies achieve intelligence-driven automation, proactive recovery orchestration, and continuous improvement. This is as much a result of people and processes as they are the IT infrastructure.

According to Veeam’s research, only 8% of organizations have reached this best-in-class level, but those that do experience up to 7x faster recovery, 4x less data loss, and 3x less downtime.

Why Benchmarking Matters for Federal Agencies

• Quantify readiness: knowing exactly where their data resilience practices stand today.
• Justify investments: translating technical improvements into mission-aligned ROI and risk reduction.
• Meet federal mandates: demonstrate alignment with evolving cybersecurity and data protection requirements from OMB, CISA, and NIST.
• Build a cross-functional culture of resilience: connecting IT, cybersecurity, and risk management under a shared mission framework.

The DRMM’s value lies in its ability to turn resilience into a measurable and improvable discipline rather than a theoretical goal.

From Awareness to Action: A Prescriptive Roadmap

Veeam's DRMM eBook highlights that progress begins in the conference room, not the data center. Agencies must bring together CIOs, CISOs, Chief Data Officers, Chief Risk Officers, and mission owners to collaborate and align on shared resilience goals.

Assess a baseline, set a maturity goal, iterate on a phased approach, and scale continuously:

• Foundation: Establish a clear resilience strategy and measurable outcomes.
• Evolution: Automate recovery workflows, integrate real-time monitoring, and test regularly.
• Revolution: Leverage intelligence, predictive analytics, and AI-driven automation to prevent disruptions before they occur.

As agencies progress across the four horizons, they move from reactive recovery to radical resilience — the confidence in data CIA during any disruption.

Achieve Radical Resilience with Veeam and Merlin Cyber

To find out where your agency stands today, take the Veeam Data Resilience Maturity Model Quick Pulse. In just minutes, you will gain a high-level overview of your agency’s maturity horizon and a roadmap to strengthen your data resilience strategy — no matter where you begin. As next steps, contact Merlin Cyber for more information on how the DRMM framework can be optimized for your agency’s unique mission and technology requirements.