[2] A backup, or alternate, site can be another data center location which is either operated by the organization, or contracted via a company that specializes in disaster recovery services.
A cold site is operational space with basic facilities like raised floors, air conditioning, power and communication lines etc.
Hot sites are popular with organizations that operate real-time processes such as financial institutions, government agencies, and eCommerce providers.
The most important feature offered from a hot site is that the production environment(s) is running concurrently with the main datacenter.
However, this level of redundancy does not come cheap, and businesses will need to weigh the cost-benefit-analysis (CBA) of hot site utilization.
This load balanced production processing method can be cost effective, and will provide the users with the security of minimal downtime during an event that affects one of the data centers.
When contracting services from a commercial provider of backup site capability, organizations should take note of contractual usage provision and invocation procedures.
However, in a large-scale incident that affects a wide area, it is likely that these facilities will become over-subscribed due to multiple customers claiming the same backup site.
Again, a higher fee will be required; but the cost could be justified by the security and resiliency of the site, which would give that organization the ability to provide its users with uninterrupted access to their data and applications.