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Offsite Facilities

When choosing a backup facility, it should be far enough away from the original site so that one disaster does not take out both locations. Three main types of leased or rented offsite facilities:

Hot site A facility that is leased or rented and is fully configured and ready to operate within a few hours. It contains all necessary computer equipment, company moving in just requires to bring in retrieved data and workforce. The equipment and system software must absolutely be compatible with the data being restored from the main site and must not cause any negative interoperability issues. It is most expensive option. A hot site can support a short- or long-term outage. Most hot-site facilities support annual tests that can be done by the company to ensure the site is functioning in the necessary state. Backup tapes or other media should be tested periodically on the equipment kept at the hot site to make sure the media is readable by those systems.

Warm site A leased or rented facility that is usually partially configured with some basic IT equipment, but not with the actual/company specific computers. This is the most widely used model. It is less expensive than a hot site and can be up and running within a reasonably acceptable time period. It may be a better choice for companies that depend upon proprietary and unusual hardware and software, because they will bring their own hardware and software with them to the site after the disaster hits.

Cold site A leased or rented facility that supplies the basic environment, HVAC but none of theequipment or additional services. It may take weeks to get the site activated and ready for work. The cold site is the least expensive option but takes the most time and effort to actually get up and functioning right after a disaster.

Redundant Site A redundant site is a site owned and maintained by the company vs the above three which are subscription services , meaning the company does not pay anyone else for the site. Redundant site is usually hot in nature as well.

Tertiary Sites During the BIA phase, the team may recognize the danger of the primary backup facility not being available when needed, which could require a tertiary site. It is also referred as ‘backup to the backup’.

Reciprocal agreement This arrangement is also referred to as mutual aid, with another company. This means that company A agrees to allow company B to use its facilities if company B is hit by a disaster, and vice versa. These agreement have issues of their own, but in certain businesses involving specialized technologies and system this may the viable option, like a newspaper printing press.

Rolling hot site or mobile hot site, where the back of a large truck or a trailer is turned into a data processing or working area. The trailer has all of the necessary power, telecommunications, and systems to allow for processing to take place right away.

Multiple processing centers  An organization with a multiple facilities around the world, may include products and technologies that would move all data processing from one facility to another in a matter of seconds when an interruption is detected. This technology can be implemented within the organization or from one facility to a third-party facility or service provider.

Time Brokers  Time Brokers promise to deliver processing time on other systems. They charge a fee, but cannot guaranty that processing will always be available, especially in areas that experienced multiple disasters.