What are RTO and RPO in disaster recovery?
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Quick Answer
RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is how quickly you must restore service after a disaster; RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is how much data loss is acceptable, i.e., how far back your last usable backup can be.
Detailed Answer
RTO drives your failover architecture (hot standby for minutes, backups for hours); RPO drives backup/replication frequency (continuous replication for near-zero, nightly backups for a day). Tighter objectives cost more, so you set them per system by business impact, then choose a DR strategy (backup-restore, pilot light, warm standby, multi-site) to meet them.
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Interview Tip
Anchor RTO to time-to-restore and RPO to acceptable data loss, and note tighter targets cost more — so set them by business impact.
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