Glossary Term

RPO

Recovery Point Objective ... the amount of data loss the business can tolerate between the last good copy and the failure event.

Definition

RPO describes acceptable data loss. It affects backup frequency, replication design, and how buyers evaluate continuity software. A near-zero RPO usually implies tighter replication or more frequent protected copies.

RPO should be defined alongside RTO because time and data loss tolerance shape different parts of the solution.

Example

An organization that can tolerate at most fifteen minutes of lost transactions needs a much tighter RPO than one that reconciles data at the end of the day.