In disaster recovery planning, what do backup frequency and RPO define?

In disaster recovery planning, what do backup frequency and RPO define?

• A. The geographic location of backups.
• B. The number of backups to retain.
• C. Backup frequency defines how much data might be lost; RPO defines the maximum acceptable data loss window.
• D. The type of encryption used for backups.

Answer: (C)

The main idea here is how often you back up data and what amount of data loss you’re willing to tolerate in a disaster. Backup frequency is about the interval between backups—how often you save copies of your data. The closer those backups are, the less data could be lost if a disruption occurs. RPO, or Recovery Point Objective, is the maximum amount of data loss you’re willing to accept, expressed as a time window. So if your RPO is 2 hours, you must be able to restore data that is at most 2 hours old. In practice, the backup frequency is chosen to meet the RPO: more frequent backups help guarantee you won’t lose more than the allowed window.

The other aspects aren’t about data loss tolerance. Geographic location of backups relates to resilience geography, not how much data loss is acceptable. The number of backups to retain is a retention policy detail, not the data loss window. Encryption type is a security control, not about how much data loss you can tolerate.