Improve Your Backup & Recovery Plan by Incorporating RTO & RPO

What Is a Backup and Recovery Plan?A backup and recovery plan is also commonly referred to as a disaster recovery plan. It’s a written strategy that will guide your business on what to do in the event of an incident, helping you to better weather disruption and reduce the financial implications of downtime.  The benefits of having such a plan include: 

1. Reduce the likelihood of long-term downtime by strategizing alternate locations to work from in the event of a disaster

2. Improve data retention through regular backups

3. Combat common causes of downtime through security solutions that prevent cyber threats

4. Help your people to manage an incident calmly and effectively If your business doesn’t have a backup and recovery plan yet, we advise you to put one together as soon as possible. If you’d like assistance, contact us. Our team has a wealth of experience in helping companies like yours implement backup and recovery strategies. 

Need to Know: RTO and RPOTwo crucial elements of backup and disaster recovery are RPO and RTO. On first reading, these two metrics might mean nothing to you. But, by the end of this article, you’ll have a better understanding of RPO and RTO, and the role they both play in disaster recovery.  These two acronyms stand for recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO). While they sound similar, they refer to two very different things. 

What is the Difference Between RPO and RTO?RPO is a metric linked to the frequency of your data backups. Your company probably stores and generates huge amounts of data each day. You don’t need to worry about backing up all of this data. RPO is only concerned with the data you consider critical.  For most organizations, RPO is measured in hours and minutes. It’s used to calculate the amount of data your company can lose before you start to feel a negative impact on the bottom line.  RTO, on the other hand, is concerned with your company’s IT systems and applications. The metric measures the amount of time after an outage by which you must have your systems back up and running. If you go over the RTO metric, your company will likely suffer long-term consequences such as reputational damage and loss of business.  RPO and RTO sound like serious stuff - and they are. But these metrics aren’t to scaremonger you. Knowing your RPO and RTO is crucial to optimizing your recovery time from a disaster, so don't bury your head in the sand about these vital statistics. 

Calculating RTO and RPO in Your CompanyIt can be tempting to use ballpark RTO and RPO figures from the internet. We strongly advise against this. Your RPO and RTO will be unique to your business. A calculation that’s off by a matter of minutes could cause long-term damage. Given the complexity of RPO and RTO, many companies seek help from specialist third-party providers to figure out these metrics.  Plus, a good IT provider can do much more than calculating your RTO and RPO. They can help you with an entire disaster recovery strategy and manage your IT infrastructure for you so that, if a disaster strikes, you can feel confident you’re in the right hands. 

Stay on Top of RTO and RPO Metrics Once you’ve figured out your RPO and RTO, remember to keep an eye on these calculations and regularly revisit them to ensure they’re still fit for purpose. For example, if you move office or start using a new suite of applications, you’ll need to re-calculate your RPO and RTO metrics in line with these changes.  The best way to keep on top of disaster recovery is to put bi-annual meetings in place, where you go over your plan and metrics, and ensure everything is still accurate. 

Get Help Calculating RTO and RPO Today!Texas I.T. Pros can help your Denton or Wise County business with figuring out your RPO and RTO and implementing a disaster recovery plan you can count on.  Reach out to us if your Denton or Wise County business has any questions about disaster recovery or cybersecurity. Call 940-239-6500 or reach out online.