RTO and RPO are the two most important numbers in disaster recovery planning. RTO is how long your business can operate without a system. RPO is how much data loss is acceptable. Setting these targets realistically determines how much you should invest in protection and recovery.
Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
RTO is the maximum time a system can be down before unacceptable business impact occurs. A customer-facing e-commerce system might have an RTO of 2 hours. An internal expense system might have an RTO of 24 hours. The shorter the RTO, the more expensive the recovery infrastructure must be.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
RPO is the maximum data loss acceptable after a failure. An RPO of 1 hour means you can afford to lose up to 1 hour of transactions. An RPO of 15 minutes means backups must be taken every 15 minutes. Shorter RPOs require more frequent backups and higher costs.
Calculating Business Impact
Realistic RTO and RPO targets come from understanding actual business impact. For each critical system, estimate the hourly cost of unavailability and the hourly cost of data loss. Use those numbers to determine how much to spend on faster recovery.
How Aegisys Can Help
We help organizations define RTO and RPO targets, build recovery infrastructure to meet those targets, and test that recovery actually works. Get your free assessment today.
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