What aspect does Recovery Point Objective NOT define?

The Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is a critical concept in disaster recovery and business continuity planning. It specifically addresses the maximum acceptable amount of data loss measured in time. This means that RPO defines how far back in time you should be able to recover your data after an incident, indicating how much data can be lost due to a disruption.

In this context, the aspect that RPO does not define is system operational capacity. RPO does not concern itself with the performance or capabilities of the system during recovery, such as how many resources can be restored or how quickly the system can operate after an incident. Instead, it focuses solely on the time frame for data recovery and acceptable data loss, leaving operational capacity as an entirely separate consideration typically addressed under different parameters like Recovery Time Objective (RTO) or overall system resilience strategies.

The other aspects mentioned in the question—data recovery time, backup regularity, and the state of data after an outage—are relevant to the definition of RPO, as they all relate to how data recovery is managed and the expectations set for minimizing data loss.