RTO and RPO in the data backup process
Every year, more than 70 million users fall victim to cybercrime. Small and medium-sized businesses are most commonly affected, as they are often…
Every year, more than 70 million users fall victim to cybercrime. Small and medium-sized businesses are most commonly affected, as they are often unprepared for attacks by hackers. That is why it is important to implement appropriate data security measures and create an action plan in the event of a failure or cyberattack. Find out why data backup is crucial for protecting information and how RTO and RPO affect a business.
Disaster Recovery Plan – impact on organizational security
Data security is one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today. During the pandemic, the number of cybercrimes increased by as much as 600%! Considering that the average employee has access to 11 million files, losing such a large amount of data could have devastating consequences. Many organizations also face challenges related to archiving and storing information, as well as preparing for potential system failures.
That is why more and more businesses are choosing to implement a Disaster Recovery Plan, which helps ensure business continuity. It is typically based on minimizing IT infrastructure downtime by creating a backup data center. In addition to creating backups and developing a recovery plan, it is also essential to recover and restore data as quickly as possible. When developing a Disaster Recovery Plan, two key factors should be taken into account: RTO and RPO.
RTO – what is it?
Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is an indicator that defines the time within which IT infrastructure should be fully restored after a failure by the service provider. It is important for the RTO to be tailored to the specific industry, business operations, and size of the organization. For example, a small online store may be able to cope with an RTO of several hours. However, in the case of a large bank or an international e-commerce service, prolonged downtime can result in significant financial and reputational losses. The average cost of a data breach in 2021 was more than $4 million.
In addition, the Recovery Time Objective defines the required level of service availability, the response time from the moment a failure occurs to the initiation of the first recovery steps, and the maximum time required to restore business processes, IT infrastructure, systems, and software.
RTO is closely related to the Disaster Recovery Plan, as well as to SLAs signed with external service providers, for example, when outsourcing IT services. The Recovery Time Objective is calculated based on the management plan developed as part of the DRP.
RPO – what is it?
The RPO indicator defines the maximum acceptable period between the occurrence of a failure and the restoration of a data backup. Moreover, the Recovery Point Objective determines the maximum amount of data that can be lost. Depending on the nature of the business, the importance of this information may vary, which is why RPO helps determine an acceptable level of data loss. This makes it possible to establish how frequently backups should be performed. Some organizations choose to back up their data to the cloud, which can shorten the time required to restore business continuity.
How high can the RPO value be?
- RPO close to zero – most commonly found in DRP strategies based on cloud services. In this case, data backup and replication are performed in real time, allowing information to be recovered almost immediately after a failure;
- RPO of up to 4 hours – the backup is also stored in the cloud, but data backups are performed every few hours;
- RPO of up to 24 hours – in this case, the backup is stored on external storage, and the latest backup serves as the recovery point.
How to create an effective data backup?
When creating a backup, it is important to remember several key elements that can improve the security of an organization’s data. The most important principles for creating an effective data backup include:
- creating disk-based backups with deduplication, i.e. eliminating duplicate elements within data sets, which helps save valuable disk or cloud storage space;
- automating and managing backups using appropriate software. This allows backups to be created automatically and provides access to analytical tools;
- tape libraries, which provide optimal and automated data archiving. Encrypting resources, as well as data tiering and long-term data retention, increase the level of information protection;
- creating at least 3 backup copies stored on at least 2 devices, with one of them located in a different location from, for example, the organization’s headquarters (the so-called 3-2-1 rule). This helps effectively protect data in the event of a natural disaster, such as a flood or fire.
More information about creating data backups can be found here.
Summary
RTO and RPO can significantly improve data security within an organization. These indicators are an important element of a Service Level Agreement (SLA). Properly defining these values ensures that company data is adequately protected and reduces concerns about potential failures.
An important aspect is tailoring RTO and RPO to the individual needs of the client. Therefore, before defining them, it is worth contacting an experienced provider who can help determine the appropriate values.
If you are looking for such a provider, contact us. At Cloud4You, we can help you create backups and effectively implement a Disaster Recovery Plan.
