RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective) are critical disaster recovery metrics:

• RTO: Maximum acceptable time to restore service after a failure. This is about how fast you can recover.
• RPO: Maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. This is about how much data you can afford to lose.

Example:
If a database fails at 2:00 PM:

• RTO of 1 hour means service must be restored by 3:00 PM
• RPO of 15 minutes means you can only lose data from 1:45 PM onward

These metrics drive backup frequency, infrastructure investment, and recovery strategy decisions.