Recovery Point Objective (RPO) represents the maximum amount of data an organization can lose in the event of a disaster before it impacts business operations. RPO is tied to RTO, the maximum allowable amount of downtime a business can sustain. Setting a proper RPO is crucial in determining how often an organization must perform a backup to minimize losses.
For example, if a business has an RPO of 30 minutes, that means it can sustain the amount of data lost during those 30 minutes before the event causes significant damage. Organizations avoid substantial financial and operational impact by carefully defining backup and recovery strategies to match RPOs.
