What does Recovery Time Objective (RTO) specify?

• A. The maximum tolerable downtime for a service before operations must be restored.
• B. The maximum acceptable data loss measured in time.
• C. The time required to detect a disruption.
• D. The average time to repair a failed component.

Answer: (A)

RTO specifies the maximum tolerable downtime a service can endure after a disruption before operations must be restored. It translates the impact of downtime into a concrete time window, guiding what recovery measures and investments are needed to bring systems back online within that limit. This focus on how long you can be without the service is what distinguishes it from related concepts: data loss tolerance (RPO) concerns how much data could be lost, not how long the service can be down; detection time is how quickly a disruption is noticed; and repair time (MTTR) is the actual time to fix something, which is an outcome after activating recovery.