What is RPO in data recovery? RPO stands for recovery point objective, and it is a common method used to assess how much data can be lost. Businesses can set the RPO in different tiers depending on how much data is critical and how much is semicritical. Critical data, for example, is those that can’t be replaced, such as banking transactions. Semicritical data, on the other hand, can be anything from file servers to chat logs.
The RTO and RPO measures how much downtime will be required before business applications are fully recovered, and they differ significantly. RTO measures how long a system will be unavailable without a backup, while RPO refers to the date at which the last backup was made. Since these dates may differ, it can be difficult to set an exact RTO or RPO target, and you may not even know how long a data-loss scenario might last.
For most businesses, zero and near-zero RPO and RTO are overkill. Especially for business-critical applications, zero and near-zero RTO are far too long. Therefore, most companies should stick to RTP and RPO of about 15 minutes, as this is the most reasonable and affordable recovery objectives for most businesses. It’s important to understand these metrics in order to ensure that your data recovery strategy can handle any disaster and recover the business as quickly as possible.
RTO and RPO objectives are based on business requirements and development. A proper backup policy will protect existing IT investments and shift capital expenditures to budget-friendly operating expenses. Proper RPOs will enable rapid recovery and reduce downtime while maintaining data integrity. If you implement automated backups, RPO and RTO objectives will become easier to achieve. These objectives are vital for any organization’s data recovery strategy. So how do you ensure you choose the right RPO and RTO for your business?
When selecting an appropriate recovery point objective, you need to consider how much data you can afford to lose. Recovery point objectives are a critical component of a disaster recovery plan, and selecting the right recovery point objective is essential for maintaining regulatory compliance and protecting customer data. After identifying the critical data, IT teams can create an RPO priority list for each application, depending on its importance and impact on the business. Once this is complete, the team can focus on RTO priorities, allowing only critical data to be recovered.
During a disaster, RPO is often measured in minutes or hours. Traditional tape backups are often scheduled to run for two hours and take a minimum of two hours. Replication, on the other hand, takes two hours and can help achieve RPOs of less than one hour. This allows for smoother routing during a disruption. RPO guarantees can be higher with replication, which is a good option if you need to be able to restore data quickly.
The most common type of data backup is tape. Non-critical data is data that does not have a high value or a high risk of loss. In contrast, mission-critical data is data that is essential to the business or to a customer. Recovery time may take anywhere from a few minutes to several days. For such data, RTO is a useful method to extend the life of data. If you do not have time to back up vital data, then you can use other methods, such as SATA-based disk arrays.
