Disaster Recovery Journal Spring 2025

Beyond RTO and RPO: Introducing the Recovery Operability Objective By VELLA GARRETT & GREG CHRISTIAN Y ou may have a vague memory of hearing about the com missioner of the U.S. Patent Office, Charles H. Duell, who, in 1899, was attributed with saying, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Although no substantial evidence exists – he actually said this in support of clos ing the Patent Office – it’s a great exam ple of how we make assumptions about the limits and practicalities of our world. Perhaps a more valuable philosophy is the concept of “continual improvement,” as espoused by business management guru W. Edwards Deming and adopted

by both the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the British Standards Institute (BSI). This concept promotes the idea that all goods, services, and processes are subject to and benefit from positive change, big and small, over time. Disaster recovery management is no stranger to change, and thanks to the rapid and continual improvement of digital tech nologies, DR practices have a noticeable evolution history. Occasionally, however, continual improvement benefits as much from looking backward in time for missed opportunities as it does from looking for ward in anticipation of new ones. This is the case that motivates considering a missed opportunity for DR to improve its service to business units across our con stituencies. We are all familiar with recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point

32 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | SPRING 2025