What does Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) represent?

Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) is a key metric used in IT service management and systems reliability to measure the efficiency of response to system failures. Specifically, it represents the average time required to repair a system and restore business operations after a failure occurs.

This average time includes the entire process from the moment of component or system failure until the operations are back to normal levels, factoring in response time, diagnosis, and the actual repair time. By focusing on restoring business operations, MTTR provides valuable insights into how effectively an organization can respond to incidents and minimize downtime, which can significantly impact productivity and service delivery.

The other options do not accurately capture the essence of MTTR. For instance, while recovering data is essential, it does not encompass the full breadth of returning overall operations to normal. Maximum allowable time to restore services refers more to service level agreements than the statistical representation of repair time. Total downtime divided by the number of failures describes a different metric known as Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), which focuses on the reliability between failures rather than the repair process itself. Thus, option C accurately defines MTTR as the average time to restore business operations following a failure.