What is a Disaster Recovery (DR) Site?

Data Center plays a critical role in securing assets and helps companies organize, process, store, and distribute large amounts of data. This blog covers the basics of a Disaster Recovery (DR) site and its type.

What is a Disaster Recovery (DR) site?

A disaster recovery site is an additional set of IT infrastructure active only when the primary data center is not available for any reason. It may be exact replica of the primary data center or have fewer resources. It helps the organization to ensure the running of all critical business operations by providing additional data centers generally in different cities or provinces.

Types of DR site

For setting up a DR site, organizations have two options depending on the risk and cost involved:

Internal site

It is generally managed by the same organization and typically a second data center used by big companies to recover and resume operations on the failure of the primary data center.

External site

If some other organization manages the data center. It is further classified into three types: Hot, warm, and cold sites. It is preferable to set up the location of the external site in a different city.

Parameter	Internal site	External site
Location	Located within the organization's premises.	Located outside the organization's premises.
Ownership	Owned and managed directly by the organization.	Often managed by a third-party provider.
Control	Provides a higher level of control over security and access.	Relinquishes some control to the external service provider.
Initial Cost	Generally incurs higher initial setup costs.	May have lower initial costs, depending on the service model.
Maintenance and Upkeep	Requires ongoing maintenance and updates by the organization.	Some maintenance responsibilities may be outsourced to the provider.
Scalability	Scalability may be constrained by the organization's resources.	Can offer greater scalability, especially in a cloud-based model.
Accessibility	May have limited accessibility during certain disasters.	Typically provides remote accessibility, enhancing flexibility.
Downtime Impact	Downtime during disaster recovery may be longer.	Offers potential for quicker recovery, depending on the setup.
Flexibility	Offers the potential for quicker recovery, depending on the setup.	Provides flexibility through various service models and options.
Employment	May require dedicated internal staff for management and operation.	External providers may handle some tasks, impacting internal staffing needs.

Types of External Site

Hot site

It is a clone of the primary data center with the same infrastructure, staff, and customer data primary data center. It is working 24 hours a day and is ready for companies in the failure of the primary data center.

Warm site

It is similar to the Hot site but customer data is not available in the warm site. Organization installs customer data when a primary data center stops working or in the event of a disaster.

Cold site

It is a rented space with power, cooling facility, and internet connectivity but no IT infrastructure, staff, or customer data is available in the cold site. It only activates when the primary data center will not operate for a long time. In simple terms, you can say that It supplements the hot and warm sites in operations for a long time.

Parameter	Hot Site	Warm Site	Cold Site
State of Readiness	Always On and Ready!	Partially Awake, Needs a Nudge.	Partially Awake but needs a Nudge.
Data Availability	Up-to-Date & Instantly Accessible.	A Bit Dated, Still Pretty Quick.	Up-to-date & Instantly Accessible.
Infrastructure Setup	Mirrors the Main Site in Twin Splendor.	Half-Dressed, Ready to Impress Quickly.	Bare Minimum, Ready to Dress Up if Needed.
Financial Impact	High Initial & Ongoing Investment.	Moderate Entry Fee with Reasonable Upkeep.	Affordable Entrance, Activation Costs Extra.
Recovery Time Objective	Lightning-Fast, Near-Instantaneous.	Faster Recovery, Not Lightning Quick.	Slow and Steady, Needs Time to Get Ready.

Conclusion

DR site plays a critical role in ensuring the availability of websites. This introductory article helps us understand the DR site and types of DR sites. Further, the DR site may be divided into an internal and external site. The external site is further categorized into hot, warm, and cold sites.