Did you know that 58% of small businesses are not prepared in the event of losing their data? If a disaster were to strike your company, how long would it take your business to recover? If your answer is “I’m not sure” then it is time to learn all about Recovery Point Objective also known as RPO.

Keep reading to learn the ins and outs of back up files and how an RPO can help you.

What Does an RPO Measure?

RPOs can measure how frequently you have to back up your data and how far back IT has to go. With an RPO you look at the last point where your data was in a usable format and go back to that time. Something else that is measured is how much data was lost in total after the disaster.

Automatic Data

You want to look into doing consistent data backups as close as possible. The less you wait in between backups the lower your risks are of losing too much data. For example, if you opt to backup your data every 24 hours then you are risking losing 24 hours’ worth of data.

Once you automate your data backup then you can implement automatic RPO strategies as well.

Why Are RPOs Essential?

Unfortunately, you never know when a disaster will strike when it comes to losing your data. This is why it is always best to be prepared because it will allow you and your employees to have a plan of action and avoid being overwhelmed.

You will want to make sure that your RPO strategy is based on the priority of your application use along with the budget that you have available. All of your high priority applications will demand tighter recovery point objectives. This means that you will need backups a lot more frequently.

How to Calculate RPO

You can calculate and set your RPO based on how frequently you update your files. Doing this will mean that your restored operations always have the most up to date versions of your business data if you were to experience a service interruption. An example of this is that the more often you back up and update your files then the shorter your RPO can be set to.

If your company can’t afford to lose over an hour of data then you will have to set your RPO to be every 0 to 1 hour. This is very common for businesses that deal with banking transactions and patient records.

Feeling Like a Recovery Point Objective Pro?

We hope that now that you know the ins and outs of the Recovery Point Objective, you can start working on the perfect backup up plan for your business. It is important to have peace of mind that if something were to happen you would not lose any valuable data that can essentially cost you your business.