A recovery target is a predefined objective for restoring a service after disruption and limiting the amount of data that can be lost. It commonly includes a recovery time objective (RTO), the maximum intended time to restore service, and a recovery point objective (RPO), the maximum acceptable period of data loss measured in time.
Recovery targets help organizations plan backups, failover, staffing, and recovery tests according to business needs. For example, a critical banking service may require a shorter restoration time and less data loss than a nonessential internal tool. Targets should reflect the whole service and its dependencies, not just the underlying infrastructure; a cloud region outage can still interrupt a service if backups or alternate systems are not ready. Regular exercises show whether recovery plans can meet the stated targets in practice.