RPO — Recovery Point Objective
Definition: The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. An RPO of 15 minutes means you accept losing up to 15 minutes of writes in a disaster — pick the number deliberately.
Example
We needed a 1-minute RPO for transactional data and accepted a 24-hour RPO for analytics — two systems, two budgets.
When you'll hear it
RPO shows up most often in engineering planning, architecture reviews, and sprint retrospectives. When someone uses it, they're usually referring to recovery point objective — and they expect the room to already know what that means.
FAQs
What does RPO stand for?
RPO stands for Recovery Point Objective.
What does RPO mean in technology and engineering?
The maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. An RPO of 15 minutes means you accept losing up to 15 minutes of writes in a disaster — pick the number deliberately.
Where will I hear RPO used at work?
RPO comes up most often in engineering planning, architecture reviews, and sprint retrospectives. It's used as shorthand for recovery point objective, so people assume you already know the term.