Recovery Point Objective

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What Does Recovery Point Objective Mean?

A recovery point objective (RPO) is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. It is the age of the files or data in backup storage required to resume normal operations if a computer system or network failure occurs.

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Techopedia Explains Recovery Point Objective

RPO is measured in time and then dictates disaster recovery procedures. For example, if the RPO is set to 30 minutes, then a backup of the system is required to be done every 30 mintues.

The RPO must be completely independent of the minimum estimated time required to resume normal operations after a disaster, known as the recovery time objective (RTO).

Along with the RTO, the RPO helps system administrators determine appropriate disaster recovery policies and procedures and decide which backup and recovery technologies to employ given the overall design strategy that data loss should not delay the expected time to resume normal operations. For example, a two-hour RPO might be appropriate for auxiliary hard drives, while a five-day RPO might be appropriate for magnetic tape or recordable compact disks.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.