HOT sites are live, all the time. The "time to recovery" is almost nothing, as all the data on one site is kept totally current (within maybe a few minutes) of the other site. The hardware is already in place, and so is the software (through some sort of backup replication or somesuch). Alternate data centers are usually examples of hot sites - concurrent operations (albeit not necessarily).
WARM sites are generally sites that have hardware in place, and connected, but the software is on a more cyclical or periodic timeframe, ie, daily backups. The eq itself, while in place, may actually not be on, or plugged in, but the network drops are in place. COMDISCO (a recovery center here in the Northeast) is an example of this... they have the pcs, they have the basic software, all we need to do is get our people and data to them. COLD sites are those where you have a truck of PCs out in the fields someplace. Circuits need to be established, data needs to be retreived from a backup to load onto the PCs, and even common software may not exist on the desktops. Think of literally a truck of pcs out in back of your house, that could be moved anywhere (but is quickly aging ;) ). To get this going you would need to bring them to the community center, hook up dsl/cable/t1/dialup, load all the software that your specific company uses, and THEN you need to get your data there. Please feel free to correct me everyone. Kevin Jagh -----Original Message----- From: Rodrigo Ramos [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 4:32 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: hOt or cold back up? Hi, Can anyone tell me the difference between hot site back up and cold site back up? Thank you very much? Best regards, Rodrigo Ramos