Cybersecurity Glossary
Recovery Time Objective
The maximum time a system may stay down before the consequences become unacceptable.
What Recovery Time Objective means
The recovery time objective is a business decision expressed in hours or days. Its partner, the recovery point objective, states how much recent data you can afford to lose. Together they determine what backup and recovery arrangements you actually need, and therefore what they cost.
Why Recovery Time Objective matters for small businesses and nonprofits
Most organisations have never stated these numbers, so they buy backup arrangements by price and discover the mismatch during a real recovery. Naming the numbers first makes the cost conversation rational.
What to do about Recovery Time Objective
- Set the two numbers per system, since not everything deserves the same protection
- Measure a real restore against them and record the actual result
- Revisit them when the business changes, for example after taking on a larger client
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