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Cloud Computing · Foundational

Recovery Time Objective (RTO)

Maximum acceptable time to restore a service after a disruption.

Definition

RTO defines how long a business process can be unavailable before causing unacceptable impact. It drives disaster recovery architecture: lower RTOs require more automation and pre-provisioned resources, which cost more.

Example

An order system with a 15-minute RTO must be running in the DR region within 15 minutes of an outage declaration.

Exam tip

RTO is about time to recover service (downtime); RPO is about data loss measured back in time.

Don't confuse it with

Related terms