What is Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD)?
Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD) is the maximum period that a system, application, or process can be unavailable before causing unacceptable business impact. It defines the outer boundary of downtime an organization can tolerate.
MTD is determined through Business Impact Analysis (BIA) and is closely related to Critical Business Processes (CBP) and Critical Business Assets (CBA).
What is MTD used for?
MTD is used to guide Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) strategies. It helps organizations define acceptable risk levels and prioritize recovery efforts.
Security and operations teams use MTD alongside Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) to design resilient systems and ensure alignment with business requirements.
