RPO and RTO sit at the center of every disaster recovery conversation. They define how much data a business can afford to lose and how quickly it must get back online. Together, they provide a disaster recovery framework that allows organizations to turn disruption into resilience and keep operations moving when the unexpected happens. Setting clear targets for both has become one of the most important parts of business continuity planning.
To find out what 4,785,866 technology leaders in the US’ opinions were about RPO and RTO, we utilized AI-driven audience profiling to synthesize insights from online discussions for a full year, ending September 15, 2025, to a high statistical confidence level. Their perspectives highlight the strategies that work, the challenges that persist, and the trends most likely to influence the future of disaster recovery planning.
What's The Difference Between RPO and RTO?
Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are two sides of the disaster recovery equation.
RPO focuses on data and the amount of information the business can afford to lose. It defines the point in time to which systems must be restored, whether that is the last backup an hour ago, yesterday, or last week. RTO focuses on time, considering how quickly systems must be restored after a disruption. It sets the maximum downtime that the business can tolerate before operations are too heavily affected.
A simple way to see the difference is that RPO measures the acceptable loss of information, while RTO measures the acceptable delay in operations. Both need to be agreed across business and technology teams and aligned with customer expectations and regulatory requirements. Together, they give disaster recovery plans concrete targets that turn broad goals into practical action.
What Best Describes Your Current Approach To Disaster Recovery?
39% of technology leaders have insufficient disaster recovery coverage in place
Disaster recovery strategies aren’t all created equal, and the gaps are hard to miss:
The current approach to disaster recovery is best described as patchy, with some progress in place but big gaps still showing. Having partial coverage in place is the most common setup. For 7% of technology leaders in our audience, it feels like adequate flexibility, but 39% admit they have insufficient coverage. That points to a halfway house approach, with core systems protected, secondary ones left exposed.
Formalized strategies across all systems suggest a more mature stance, but even here the story splits. 15% say their strategy is effective, while 7% still see insufficient coverage and 4% call out significant risk. That picture matches broader research showing that only 54% of organizations have a company-wide plan. The rest are still missing documented RPO and RTO objectives, which helps explain why gaps remain even where a strategy exists.
Where there’s no clear strategy at all, the risks spike. Just 2% still feel they have enough flexibility, but 23% accept they’re sitting on significant risk. Ad hoc processes, reported as insufficient coverage by 3%, underline the same point: that patchwork fixes don’t hold when systems fail. Strategy in development stages drew no opinions, showing these organizations haven’t lived with their plans long enough to judge them.
What Is The Most Significant Consequence Of Downtime For Your Business?
100% of technology leaders agree that regulatory non-compliance is the most significant consequence of downtime for their business
Downtime’s most damaging impact is beyond dispute:
There’s no debate about what is the most significant consequence of downtime, with all 4,785,866 technology leaders in our audience pointing to the negative impact of regulatory non-compliance. That level of agreement is almost unheard of, and it highlights how directly downtime translates into compliance failure.
When systems stall, reporting deadlines are missed, audit trails are broken, and required controls no longer run. The result is exposure on every front, from steep financial penalties to full-scale investigations and even license suspensions.
“The most damaging outcome of downtime isn’t just missed revenue—it’s the chain reaction of compliance failures, penalties, and reputational damage that follow. Once reporting stops or audit trails break, the business is exposed on every front. That’s why setting RPO and RTO targets is no longer optional. It’s the only way to give customer, regulators, and executives confidence that critical systems will be restored within acceptable limits.”
-Andrew Evers, CTO of Infrascale
Global frameworks raise the stakes further, with fines reaching up to 4% of annual revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher. With consequences this severe, it makes sense that compliance risk rises above every other outcome of downtime. For technology leaders, setting tight RPO and RTO targets is more about protecting the business from regulatory and financial fallout, and less about technical efficiency.
Which Factor Most Influences Your RPO and RTO Targets?
25% of technology leaders say that industry regulations have a strong influence over their RPO and RTO targets
Different forces pull recovery planning in different directions:
With more than 93% of companies that suffer a 10-day or longer disruption filing for bankruptcy within a year, the factors that influence RPO and RTO targets the most become impossible to ignore.
Type of applications sit at the center, with 18% of technology leaders seeing them as a strong influence, 18% a possible influence, and 18% no influence. This even balance might reflect how leaders prioritize recovery differently depending on workload. High-value applications, such as payment systems or medical records, drive urgency, while less critical functions may be deprioritized.
Industry regulations stand out more clearly, with 25% of our audience marking them as a strong influence and 5% as a possible influence. For heavily regulated sectors, compliance obligations leave little room for flexibility, making strict RPO and RTO requirements unavoidable. Customer expectations add another layer, with 17% saying they are a strong influence. In practice, this means recovery planning is also a reputational exercise, since clients increasingly judge providers by how quickly they bounce back after disruption.
What Is Your Main Reason For Prioritizing RPO and RTO In Planning?
83% of technology leaders say that reducing downtime costs is the main reason for prioritizing RPO and RTO in planning
The logic behind RPO and RTO planning comes down to one driving force:
The main reason for prioritizing RPO and RTO in planning is best described as financial protection, with reducing downtime costs cited by 83% of technology leaders as the priority. That makes sense when downtime and service degradation already cost Global 2000 companies $400 billion annually.
Beneath that figure, the consequences run deeper. A single disruption averages $49 million in lost revenue, and stock values drop by about 2.5% after a downtime event. These numbers explain why leaders set tight recovery objectives. Every delay amplifies financial damage and erodes market confidence.
Avoiding operational disruption is also a driver, with 17% of our audience naming it as their main priority. Here, the emphasis is on keeping systems steady and teams productive, even when pressure builds.
In the end, RPO and RTO are treated as the levers that decide whether downtime remains a temporary setback or becomes a lasting business blow.
What Is Your Biggest Challenge In Meeting RPO and RTO Targets?
97% of technology leaders say that having limited resources poses a challenge when trying to meet targets
Recovery targets run into the same wall almost everywhere:
The biggest challenge in meeting RPO and RTO targets is the sheer strain on resources. Limited resources dominate the picture, with 48% of our audience calling them a significant challenge and 49% a possible challenge. This shows that nearly everyone struggles to balance the time, tools, and capacity needed to recover quickly and consistently.
“Every conversation I have with partners and customers comes back to the same question: how quickly can I get back online, and how much data am I going to lose in the process? RPO and RTO make those answers clear. The organizations that succeed are the ones that don’t just set targets, but actually test and prove them. That’s where managed services and modern backup solutions have the biggest impact—taking the burden off internal teams and ensuring recovery times and data loss stay within the limits the business can live with.”
-Aaron Jordan, Director of Sales Engineering at Infrascale
Lack of skilled staff looks smaller in the numbers, with 1% rating it a significant challenge and another 1% a possible challenge, but this sits within the same resource crunch. Forecasts show nine out of ten organizations will be hit by the IT skills shortage by 2026, at a cost of $5.5 trillion in delays, quality issues, and lost revenue.
Budget restrictions, cited as a significant challenge by 1%, fall into the background, suggesting capital isn’t the sticking point. Together, the findings reveal that RPO and RTO targets are rarely constrained by money, but almost always by the operational muscle it takes to meet them.
Which Technology Has Most Improved Your Disaster Recovery?
54% of technology leaders say that managed services have had a strongly positive impact on disaster recovery
One solution does most of the heavy lifting:
The technology that has most improved disaster recovery is managed services. While not strictly speaking a single technology, managed services combine tools, expertise, and delivery models into a package that organizations rely on heavily.
54% of technology leaders rate them as strongly positive, 16% as moderately positive, and only 3% as neutral or negative, and that level of confidence reflects the value of outsourcing complex recovery functions to providers who can deliver scale, skill, and 24/7 coverage.
The broader market mirrors this momentum. The global managed services market was estimated at more than $335 billion in 2024 and is projected to more than double by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 14.1%.
Automation tools sit further back, with 14% of our audience calling them strongly positive, 4% moderately positive, and 2% neutral or negative, showing they are useful for streamlining recovery steps but not transformative on their own. Cloud backup solutions register the least impact, at 1% strongly positive, 4% moderately positive, and 1% neutral or negative, signaling they are viewed mainly as a baseline safeguard.
What Is Your Main Consideration When Budgeting For Disaster Recovery?
31% of technology leaders agree that their main consideration when budgeting for disaster recovery is reducing operational costs
The real focus is on protecting the top line:
The main consideration when budgeting for disaster recovery is avoiding revenue loss. Within this, 21% of technology leaders highlight a revenue focus, likely thinking about direct hits such as lost sales or missed opportunities. Another 19% take a cost focus, which might reflect concern about financial exposure from penalties, contract breaches, or reputational fallout. In this context, every minute costs. IBM reports that 98% of organizations now face downtime expenses above $100,000 per hour, 81% see costs over $300,000, and a third say a single hour can climb to between $1 and $5 million.
Reducing operational costs is another driver, with 31% under revenue focus. These leaders might view efficiency gains as a way of keeping revenue protected, while 4% put it under cost focus, suggesting a narrower interest in trimming direct spend, such as overtime or redundant systems.
Balancing performance and cost is less common, with 17% pointing to a cost focus and 7% to a balanced focus, showing how some are trying to keep performance goals in check with financial realities.
What Trend Do You Believe Will Shape Disaster Recovery Most?
57% of technology leaders are moderately positive that AI will be the trend that most shapes disaster recovery
One trend stands out above others:
Every single opinion on which trend will shape disaster recovery was about artificial intelligence, which in itself says more than the percentages. 28% of our audience are strongly positive and 57% moderately positive, showing a broad belief that AI will make recovery faster and smarter. It’s easy to see why.
AI can flag anomalies before they snowball, trigger automated responses to cut downtime, and even rank which systems should be restored first. Industry insights point to more uses emerging, too, from sharpening cybersecurity detection to fine-tuning recovery planning by learning from past incidents. That explains the optimism, but it isn’t universal. 10% are moderately negative and 5% strongly negative, a reminder that some worry about leaning too hard on AI or whether it can always be trusted under pressure.
Other potential shifts, such as cloud native solutions, edge computing, increased automation, and regulatory developments, drew no opinions at all. Their absence may suggest these ideas feel too early, too vague, or simply less urgent than the immediate promise of AI.
For now, the conversation is one-sided. Disaster recovery’s future, in the eyes of today’s leaders, is being written in AI.
What Data Recovery Best Practice Has Been Most Effective For Your Organization?
45% of technology leaders are moderately negative that employee training has been the most effective best practice for data recovery
The gap between preparation and payoff is hard to ignore:
The data recovery best practice seen as most effective is not employee training. Just 7% of technology leaders rate it strongly positive and 17% moderately positive, while 45% are moderately negative and 28% strongly negative. That’s a striking imbalance given how common workplace training actually is.
A 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that 51% of workers have taken a class or extra training in the past year, often to keep up with industry requirements (62%) or to meet employer expectations (45%). About half (52%) said a major reason was to improve their job performance. Yet only 35% said skills to understand and use artificial intelligence tools or technology were extremely or very important. If just over a third of workers place real value on the kind of technical skills that shape recovery, it is no surprise that many tech leaders in our audience see training as ineffective in practice.
Regular testing shows little more promise, with only 2% calling it moderately positive. That tiny number suggests that either testing too often happens on paper, not under pressure, or that it’s rare or so watered down that leaders don’t see it as adding much value.
RPO and RTO decide how recovery really works in practice. The perspectives of more than four and a half million technology leaders highlight the trade-offs they are making, the challenges they keep running into, and the areas where progress feels real.
The takeaway is straightforward. Resilience depends on setting targets that balance acceptable data loss with acceptable downtime, and on holding recovery plans to those standards. With that focus, leaders are showing how businesses can keep moving even when disruption hits.
Methodology
Sourced using Artios from an independent sample of 4,785,866 United States technology leaders’ opinions across X, Reddit, TikTok, LinkedIn, Threads, and BlueSky. Responses are collected within a 95% confidence interval and 2% margin of error. Results are derived from opinions expressed online, not actual questions answered by people in the sample.
About the representative sample:
- 42% of US technology leaders are between the ages of 45 and 64.
- 54% identify as female and 46% as male.
- 42% earn between $200,000 and $500,000 annually.
- 36% are located in the Pacific US.