RPO (Recovery Point Objective)

RPO defines the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time after a disaster.

What is RPO?

Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time—how much data an organization can afford to lose in a disaster scenario.

RPO examples

RPO of 1 hour means maximum 1 hour of data loss acceptable, requiring backups at least hourly.

Common misconceptions

"Zero RPO is always possible" — Expensive and complex
"RPO equals backup frequency" — Related but different
"RPO is the same for all data" — Different data has different RPO