One of the biggest threats to either site, whether your data center is full of standalone servers or cloud hosted systems using virtual environments, is a disaster recovery strategy that is not complete. Data backup strategies should not be the only thing the disaster recovery strategy outlines. Maintaining the proper level of redundancy can help your business processes resume as soon as possible in the case of a network outage that affects your crucial business systems.
There has never been a period when the proverb "time is money" has been more accurate. A system outage can cause businesses to lose hundreds or even millions of dollars in revenue.Your disaster recovery plan should include a section on the amount of backup that must be kept in order to lessen the effects of those outages on your uptime. There are three stages of disaster recovery sites: hot sites, cold sites, and warm sites. Let's quickly go over each.
Hot Site
Hot sites are simply mirror images of the infrastructure in your datacenter. The backup facility has office space, cooling, and power for the servers (if applicable). The fact that the production environment(s) are running simultaneously with your primary datacenter is the most crucial benefit provided by a hot site. The least impact and disruption on business operations is made possible by this synchronizing. The hot site can replace the affected site right away in the event of a large interruption to your main datacenter. The cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of using hot sites must be considered by enterprises because this level of redundancy is not inexpensive.
Cold Site
In essence, a cold site is an office or datacenter without any server-related hardware installed. In the event of a substantial interruption to the primary work site or datacenter, the cold site supplies electricity, cooling, and/or office space while waiting. To get all required computers and equipment relocated and operational, the cold site will need intensive help from engineering and IT personnel. The least expensive method of cost recovery for organizations is to use cold sites.
Warm Site
The middle ground between the two catastrophe recovery alternatives is a warm location. Warm sites provide office and data center space and come with some server hardware already installed. A warm site will only have servers suitable for the installation of production environments, in contrast to a hot site, which provides a mirror of the production data center and its environment(s). Warm sites make sense for company operations that don't require a high level of redundancy but still need some (ex. Administrative roles). The downtime related to the software loading/configuration needs for engineering should be considered in a CBA done on whether to employ a warm site vs a hot site.
The ability of a company to serve customers and earn money can be seriously threatened by unplanned interruptions. An emergency backup site can lessen the effect of those interruptions on operational systems. To protect everyone's peace of mind in the event of an emergency, business owners just need to include this information in their disaster recovery plans.
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