RTO (Recovery Time Objective) refers to the maximum waiting time for resumption of AWS services/operations during an outage/disaster. Due to unexpected failure, firms have to wait for the recovery process, and the maximum waiting time for an organization is defined as the RTO. When an organization starts using AWS, they have to set their RTO, which can also be called a metric. It defines the time firms can wait during disaster recovery of applications and business processes on AWS. Organizations calculate their RTO as part of their BIA (Business Impact Analysis).
Like RTO, RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is also a business metric calculated by a business as part of its BIA. RPO defines the amount of data a firm can afford to lose during an outage or disaster. It is measured in a particular time frame within the recovery period. RPO also defines the frequency of data backup in a firm/organization. For example, if a firm uses AWS services and its RPO is 3 hours, then it implies that all its data/disk volumes will be backed up every three hours.
