About this interactive
How much time, money and effort go into disaster recovery depends on two objectives, often promised to customers in a service level agreement.
Picture a timeline with an incident on it, say a fire in the data center. The recovery point objective (RPO) looks backwards from the incident: how much data can you afford to lose? With an RPO of 15 minutes, a copy of the data has to be taken at least every 15 minutes, because everything since the last copy is lost. A bank that cannot lose a single transaction needs an RPO of zero: real-time copies.
The recovery time objective (RTO) looks forwards: how long can you be down and still be okay? Twenty-four hours suits some customers; large companies may need an hour, or minutes. Different services can have different RTOs.
Tighter objectives cost more. An RPO near zero needs data copied constantly; storage is cheap now, so this is easier than it was. An RTO of 48 hours can be met by building new cloud servers after the disaster, which is cheap. An RTO of an hour needs machines already set up and data ready, a hot site, and more staff time spent training.
About TechKnowSurge
TechKnowSurge builds IT and cybersecurity professionals through hands-on, concept-first training built around real understanding — not memorization. Free interactive tools, structured programs, and 25+ years of real-world experience, all in one place.
Explore free tools and programs →