Availability Guide for Problem Management

Planning for Disasters
Availability Guide for Problem Management–125509
8-10
Backup Site Alternatives
Cold Sites
A cold site (sometimes called a cold shell) is an empty shell or building with power, air
conditioning, data communications lines, and water at the site. When a disaster occurs,
you move all necessary equipment, software, data, and personnel to the site. Plan on 20
or more days to make the cold site operational. Cold sites are practical when disasters of
major proportions occur. For disasters that last less than 30 days, a cold site is not viable.
Developing a plan for acquiring and installing equipment will help you use a cold site
effectively. You also need contracts or agreements with vendors so that equipment is
supplied when you need it.
Operational-Ready Sites
An operational-ready site (also known as a hot site) is a fully operational site. The site
has all the necessary hardware and software as well as support for daily operations such
as telephone and other systems crucial for the survival of your organization. You can use
the operational-ready site to perform low-priority processing during calm periods.
Archived data is sent to the operational-ready site but is not loaded onto the system until
a disaster occurs.
During a disaster, you convert an operational-ready site to primary processing status by:
1. Backing up and removing the low-priority processing
2. Loading the archived data
3. Starting the necessary applications
Plan on one or more days to convert an operational-ready site into a primary processing
center.
Data-Ready Sites
A data-ready site is similar to an operational-ready site except that data-ready sites take
advantage of electronic vaulting. Data-ready sites are updated on a staged basis.
Archived data resides on the data-ready site systems and do not need to be loaded during
a disaster. However, the data-ready site systems are only as current as the last data
loaded onto the systems. You must determine how often backups are sent and loaded
onto the data-ready site systems.
To convert a data-ready site to primary processing status, you simply switch all primary
processing to the data-ready site. The data-ready site already has the latest archived data
and the necessary applications. Plan on a few hours to one day to convert a data-ready
site to primary processing status.
You might need to establish procedures for updating data on a regular basis in addition
to establishing procedures for moving primary processing to the data-ready site when a
disaster occurs.