What does RTO (Recovery Time Objective) measure?

RTO, or Recovery Time Objective, measures the maximum allowable downtime before systems, applications, or services must be restored to ensure business continuity after a disruption. It is a critical metric for organizations to establish because it helps them plan their disaster recovery strategies effectively.

Understanding RTO allows businesses to determine how quickly they need to restore operations after an incident, which influences decisions regarding backup procedures, resource allocation, and recovery strategies. A well-defined RTO helps in minimizing the impact of downtime on business operations and aligns recovery plans with organizational priorities.

The other options address different aspects of data management and risk assessment but do not accurately define RTO. For instance, the frequency of backups relates to data protection strategies rather than recovery timing, while the amount of tolerated data loss pertains to RPO (Recovery Point Objective). The effectiveness of a security protocol is unrelated to recovery time and concerns how well a system is protected from threats.