Recovery Time Objective (RTO) defines which concept?

• A. Point in time in the future at which you will be up and running again
• B. Point in time in the past to which you will recover
• C. The cost of recovery options
• D. The audit interval for DR testing

Answer: (A)

RTO is the target time by which you must have operations restored after a disruption. It specifies a future moment when services are back online, guiding how quickly you must recover to resume critical functions. For example, if the RTO is four hours, you need to complete recovery and be up and running within four hours from the disruption.

This differs from the concept of data recovery focus (RPO), which is about how much data could be lost and is described as a point in the past to which data can be recovered. The other options touch on cost considerations or testing cadence, which are not what RTO defines. Therefore, the description of a future moment when systems are restored best captures what RTO represents.