Recovery time objective (RTO)
RTO sets the maximum acceptable time from a service interruption to restoration of the required usable service.
The recovery time objective, or RTO, is the maximum acceptable time between a service interruption and restoration of the required service. The business needs to define which usable state counts as restored.
In a fictional example, the outage begins at 10:00. The database runs again at 10:40, but required attachments and the complete order workflow are not verified until 11:05. Recovery therefore takes 65 minutes. A chosen RTO of 120 minutes would be met in this example.
Completing one technical step does not automatically restore the whole service. Required files, permissions and dependencies form part of the agreed scope. RPO describes the acceptable time gap in recoverable data, rather than the duration of the outage.
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