timetorecovery

Time to recovery (TTR) is a metric used to quantify the duration required to restore services or normal functioning after a disruption. It is commonly used in information technology, business continuity, and healthcare to assess resilience and performance. In IT and disaster recovery contexts, TTR measures the elapsed time from the onset or detection of an incident to when operations return to an acceptable level of service. It is distinct from the Recovery Time Objective (RTO), which is a planned target, and from MTTR, which is the average actual repair time across incidents.

In practice, TTR is calculated by recording the start time of the outage and the end time when the system meets its defined recovery criteria. It can be expressed in minutes, hours, or days. Because there is often ambiguity about when an outage begins or ends, definitions for the start and end points should be established in policies and service-level agreements.

Applications include evaluating DR plans, benchmarking system resilience, and guiding investments in redundancy, automation, and incident response. A shorter TTR indicates quicker recovery and stronger resilience, assuming the end state matches the required service level. Factors influencing TTR include system complexity, data backup fidelity, automation, monitoring, staff skill, vendor dependencies, and the effectiveness of contingency procedures.

Limitations include inconsistent definitions, the influence of external factors, and the challenge of comparing TTR across different systems or organizations. In healthcare contexts, TTR may refer to time to clinical recovery, which depends on patient condition and treatment response. Related terms include Recovery Time Objective, Mean Time To Repair, and other continuity metrics.