A cold site provides many of the same services and options of a hot site, but at a lower cost.

Q: What is disaster recovery in cyber security?

Disaster recovery is an organizations method of regaining access and functionality to its IT infrastructure after events like a natural disaster, cyber attack, or even business disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Written on November 20, 2013

Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

Why Are Disaster Recovery Solutions Important?
1. Network Downtime Is Expensive
2. Data Backup Isn't Sufficient on its Own
3. Data Disasters Take Many Forms
4. Business Continuity Impacts Everyone
Which type of data center alternative site is the least expensive but takes more time to get started up?
What is the principal reason you might use a hot site?
Which of the following set the direction and scope of the security process and provide detailed instruction for its conduct?
What is disaster recovery in cyber security?

Whether your data-center is full of stand-alone servers, or cloud hosted systems utilizing virtual environments, one of the biggest risks to either site is an incomplete disaster recovery plan. The disaster recovery plan should detail more than just data backup procedures. In the event of a network outage, which impacts your critical business systems, it is important to maintain an appropriate level of redundancy to allow your business processes to resume ASAP.

The adage “time is money” has never been more true, than it is today. Businesses can lose out on thousands, or millions, of dollars in revenue due to a system outage. Part of your disaster recovery plan should contain the level of backup that is necessary to be maintained to minimize impacts of those outages on your uptime. Disaster recovery sites come in three stages: Hot sites, cold sites, and warm sites. Let’s review each briefly.

Hot Site

Hot sites are essentially mirrors of your datacenter infrastructure. The backup site is populated with servers, cooling, power, and office space (if applicable). The most important feature offered from a hot site is that the production environment(s) are running concurrently with your main datacenter. This syncing allows for minimal impact and downtime to business operations. In the event of a significant outage event to your main datacenter, the hot site can take the place of the impacted site immediately. However, this level of redundancy does not come cheap, and businesses will have to weigh the cost-benefit-analysis (CBA) of hot site utilization.

Cold Site

A cold site is essentially office or datacenter space without any server-related equipment installed. The cold site provides power, cooling, and/or office space which waits in the event of a significant outage to the main work site or datacenter. The cold site will require extensive support from engineering and IT personnel to get all necessary servers and equipment migrated and functional. Cold sites are the cheapest cost-recovery option for businesses to utilize.

Warm Site

A warm site is the middle ground of the two disaster recovery options. Warm sites offer office space/datacenter space and will have some pre-installed server hardware. The difference between a hot site and a warm site is that while the hot site provides a mirror of the production data-center and its environment(s), a warm site will contain only servers ready for the installation of production environments. Warm sites make sense for aspect of the business which is not critical, but requires a level of redundancy (ex. Administrative roles). A CBA conducted on whether to use a warm site versus a hot site should include the downtime associated with the software-loading/configuration requirements for engineering.

Unplanned outages can severely risk a business’ ability to generate revenue, and service clients. A disaster recovery site can help mitigate the impact of those outages on production systems. Business owners need only add this detail to their disaster recovery plans to ensure collective peace-of-mind in the event of an emergency.

One of the key elements in any Disaster Recovery plan is the selection of a secondary site for data storage to help prevent data loss in the event of cyber attacks or a natural disaster. DR software will extract critical business data from this secondary site and restore it back to primary servers in the event of a major system failure. There are three major types of disaster recovery sites that can be used: cold, warm, and hot sites. Understanding the differences among these three can help SMBs, working in cooperation with an expert IT consultant, to select the one that best suits company needs and mission-critical business operations.

Cold Computing Sites - the most simplistic type of disaster recovery site. A cold site consists of elements to provide power and networking capability as well as cooling. It does not include other hardware elements such as servers and storage. The use of a cold site is very limiting to a business since before it can be used, backup data along with some additional hardware must be sent to the site and installed. This will impede workflow.
Warm Computing Sites - contain all the elements of a cold site while adding to them additional elements including storage hardware such as tape or disk drives along with both servers and switches. Warm sites are "ready to go" in one sense, but they still need to have data transported to them for use in recovery should a disaster occur.
Hot Computing Sites - a fully functional backup site that already has important data mirrored to it. This is the ideal disaster recovery site but can be challenging to attain.

Why Are Disaster Recovery Solutions Important?

1. Network Downtime Is Expensive

If your employees or customers lose access to business-critical applications and data, there will be a direct impact on productivity and revenue. Let’s say your business has 100 employees, the average hourly revenue is $1,500 and the backup data set amounts to 2 TB. Given these parameters, a full restore from a local backup would take over 8 hours. The associated downtime cost would amount to $34,000 in lost revenue. Modern BCDR products offer the ability to run applications from backup instances of virtual servers. This allows users to continue operations while primary application servers are restored.

2. Data Backup Isn't Sufficient on its Own

You’d be hard-pressed to find a business today that doesn’t conduct some form of data backup. But what happens if your primary servers are irrevocably damaged? That's why it's essential to send copies of business data offsite. Modern BCDR products can run applications from backup instances of virtual servers, and some can extend this capability to the cloud. This approach is frequently called cloud DR or disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS). The ability to run applications in the cloud while onsite infrastructure is restored is widely considered to be a game-changer for disaster recovery. Backup and business continuity are not the same - and your business needs both.

3. Data Disasters Take Many Forms

Most IT downtime is a result of common, everyday actions like accidental (or intentional) data deletion, damage to computer hardware, and poor security habits. For example, a recent OWI Labs survey found that 81% of respondents occasionally or regularly log into public wifi, in spite of security risks. A ransomware attack or virus can halt operations just as easily as a natural disaster. These are typically the result of human error, but are preventable with BCDR planning and ongoing employee training.

4. Business Continuity Impacts Everyone

Ensuring access to applications and data following a disaster is just one piece of a successful BCDR strategy. Thorough BCDR planning should assess your business as a whole, and many planning efforts begin with an impact analysis or risk assessment. These studies can reveal weaknesses in your business's ability to continue operations. BCDR is a company-wide responsibility, and failure to protect your business from human error and system failures can be detrimental. Fortunately, by working with a skilled Managed Services Provider (MSP), you can avoid the fallout of poor BCDR planning. If you're looking for more information about BCDR strategies, or are interested in a risk assessment, reach out to iCorps for a free consultation.

Which type of data center alternative site is the least expensive but takes more time to get started up?

A cold site is the least expensive option but at the cost of the longest switchover time, since all hardware, software, and data must be loaded at the new site.

What is the principal reason you might use a hot site?

A hot backup site will have equipment set up with your current data available when you walk in, with all primary data center functions copied and maintained off site. Because everything is meant to be up and running at a moment's notice, a hot site is the better option for mission-critical data.

Which of the following set the direction and scope of the security process and provide detailed instruction for its conduct?

Managerial controls set the direction and scope of the security process and provide detailed instructions for its conduct.

What is disaster recovery in cyber security?

Disaster recovery is an organization's method of regaining access and functionality to its IT infrastructure after events like a natural disaster, cyber attack, or even business disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.