Cloud Resilience Compare

Lesson 7 of 9 · RECOVERY SCOPE · 3 min read

Kubernetes clusters in a cloud DR plan

Short answer

A managed Kubernetes cluster has two layers to recover: the cloud resources it runs on, such as the cluster itself, node groups, networking and IAM, and the workloads and settings inside it. Firefly's coverage table names EKS and AKS, and the G2 description of Commvault Cloud Rewind names Kubernetes clusters. Check which layer each tool means before you rely on it.

By The Rebuild Desk · Cloud Resilience Compare · Re-checked October 2026

Why are clusters a special case?

A managed Kubernetes cluster is a cloud resource like any other: it has a control plane, node groups, a VPC, security groups and IAM roles. It is also a platform with its own objects: namespaces, deployments, services, config maps, secrets and persistent volumes. A plan that brings back the cluster without its contents, or the contents without a cluster to run them in, does not bring back the service.

What has to come back?

  1. The cluster's cloud infrastructure: the cluster resource, node groups, networking, load balancers and the IAM roles the cluster and its workloads use.
  2. The workloads and settings inside the cluster, usually from manifests or Helm charts in version control.
  3. The data in persistent volumes, which is a data backup question.

What do the tools here document?

  • Firefly's Backup and DR coverage table lists EKS and AKS among its AWS and Azure resource types, and its disaster recovery page mentions Kubernetes. Its product page lists Kubernetes among the environments it inventories.
  • Commvault Cloud Rewind's G2 product description lists containers and Kubernetes clusters among the resources it backs up.
  • The other tools scored here do not name Kubernetes cluster recovery on the pages we reviewed.

None of the pages we reviewed spell out exactly which in-cluster objects are restored. Ask each vendor whether it restores the cluster's cloud resources, its in-cluster objects, the persistent volume data, or some combination.

In what order should a cluster come back?

Network and identity first, then the cluster and node groups, then in-cluster platform components such as ingress and certificate management, then application workloads, then data. Deploying workloads before their storage or identity exists produces pods that start and fail.

What about clusters that are not in code?

Clusters created by hand, or changed by hand after creation, are the hardest to rebuild. A capture of the cluster's cloud resources helps, because it records settings nobody wrote down. Firefly's product page lists Kubernetes among the environments it inventories and codifies, and StackGuardian describes codifying unmanaged cloud resources into Terraform or OpenTofu. Codifying the cluster before an incident turns a guess into a template. Keep the resulting files in version control next to the application manifests, so both halves of the cluster can be rebuilt from the same place.

What should you take from this lesson?

Treat each cluster as three recovery items: infrastructure, contents and data. Make sure your plan names a tool or a procedure for each.

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