8.6. Recovery and Business Continuity
💡 First Principle: Recovery planning answers two questions: "How quickly must we resume operations?" (RTO) and "How much data can we afford to lose?" (RPO). These are business decisions, not technical ones — they are derived from the Business Impact Analysis (BIA) conducted in Domain 1. The technical team's job is to build recovery architectures that meet or exceed these business requirements, and then prove through testing that the architecture actually delivers.
The relationship between BCP and DR is hierarchical: Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is the overarching framework for maintaining critical business functions during any disruption. Disaster Recovery (DR) is the IT-focused subset that addresses technology recovery — restoring systems, data, and infrastructure. BCP covers people, processes, and facilities in addition to technology.
Why this matters: RTO, RPO, MTD, and recovery site types (hot/warm/cold) are among the most directly tested concepts in Domain 7. Exam questions test your ability to select the right recovery strategy for a given RTO/RPO requirement, and to identify mismatches between BIA requirements and actual recovery capabilities.
⚠️ Common Misconception: "RTO and RPO measure the same thing — how quickly you recover." RTO (Recovery Time Objective) measures the maximum acceptable time to restore a system or process after a disruption. RPO (Recovery Point Objective) measures the maximum acceptable data loss measured in time — how far back you can tolerate losing data. They are independent: a system can have a 4-hour RTO (must be running within 4 hours) and a 1-hour RPO (cannot lose more than 1 hour of data). RPO drives backup frequency; RTO drives recovery architecture.