Data plays a critical role in today’s dynamic and hyper-connected business landscape. As a result, the total amount of data generated, gathered, copied, and consumed globally is predicted to increase rapidly. Global data creation hit 64.2 ZB in 2020 and is poised to grow to more than 180 ZB by 2025.
With that said, to ensure no mission-critical data is lost in the case of a crash or failure. Businesses must design an effective disaster recovery (DR) plan and establish dedicated sites to ensure optimal availability and faster recovery of critical data and systems.
In this article, we will go through a complete breakdown of different types of disaster recovery sites, their working process, and factors to consider before choosing one.
What is a Disaster Recovery Site?
A disaster recovery site is essentially a backup facility. It acts as a dedicated location that businesses can use to restore their systems, operations, and data following a disaster or any sudden occurrence – unwanted outage, security breach, or natural disaster. Thus, the company can continue delivering services from the DR site until the primary site is restored and brought back to optimal operations.
A DR site is usually built in a geographically separate location from the primary site to ensure it remains unaffected by the human-made or natural disaster that made the primary site down. As a result, zero/minimum business disruption is ensured.
DR sites comprise redundant power sources, backup systems, and network connectivity.
Types of Disaster Recovery Sites
Unexpected disasters such as natural calamities, security breaches, or human errors can impede business continuity, potentially leading to long-term repercussions – permanent data loss, financial losses, loss of credibility, delay in resuming regular business operations, etc.
According to a study, around 25% of organizations fail to resume their operations after being stricken by disasters.
However, having a thorough disaster recovery plan and a backup secondary site can help businesses mitigate this risk effectively. These DR sites can be of different types, including the following:
Based on Location
Internal Site
An internal DR site, also known as an in-house or self-managed site, is meant for a single company that manages and operates the site on its own. These types of DR sites are built at separate locations and consist of all required backup facilities.
This type of disaster recovery process is cost-intensive; however, it offers the company complete control over the design, implementation, and operational phases of the infrastructure. Often located close to the data originating/primary site, an internal DR site offers advanced protection from cyber-attacks and offers direct control and customization facilities.
External Site
One of the most popular types of disaster recovery sites – an external DR site is entirely owned and managed by third-party providers. Most businesses prefer external sites as their backup plan due to the ease of use and management they offer. These sites are usually built off-site, away from the company’s primary location. Examples of external disaster recovery sites include colocation facilities, managed service providers, or cloud-based disaster recovery services.
- Colocation Facilities: A colocation facility is a data center owned and managed by external vendors. It provides IT resilience by offering power, networking, redundant IT systems, and disaster-resistant infrastructure. Most of these facilities comprise a resilient backup space to ensure businesses can resume their operations in case a disaster occurs. CIOs and CSOs concerned about data loss and unplanned downtimes can shift their primary IT equipment or data storage systems to a colocation facility. It also frees them from the hefty upfront investment in building and managing an in-house data center.
- Cloud Disaster Recovery Site: In this option, organizations can leverage redundant IT infrastructure, distributed data centers, and backup facilities hosted and managed by third-party cloud service providers (CSPs) to replicate their data and systems in a cloud computing environment. Cloud-based DR facilities are gaining momentum among businesses looking for high-end, on-demand scalability, faster recovery times, automated workflows, and testing capabilities – all without investing in or managing expensive on-prem DR facilities. However, to ensure optimal performance, cloud DR services need an uninterrupted network connection, and users must consider the capabilities, compliance, and data protection measures coming with the cloud service.
Mobile DR Sites
Mobile DR facilities are used when a company requires on-site recovery or instant access to mission-critical data or vital systems to run operations. A mobile site comprises a portable unit – mostly a trailer – that can be shifted to and arranged in different locations where deploying a permanent DR site is not viable. This self-contained trailer includes all IT infrastructure essential to store and recover data – software, hardware equipment, network connectivity, communication systems, etc.
Based on Usability
Hot Sites
A hot site is a fully functional backup facility where a business’s primary production data center is already replicated and managed offsite. The backup site comprises power, cooling, servers, and office space (if required). The servers in a hot site run parallel with the primary servers.
This synchronization allows for near real-time data replication and backup, enabling zero data loss and minimal impact/downtime to normal business operations. However, this high-end redundancy comes with a hefty price tag; organizations should weigh the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) before investing in a hot DR site.
Cold Site
A cold site is essentially an office or data centre space including basic systems such as communication facilities, cooling, power, networking, etc. It is a small DR facility with little/no hardware equipment installed – it doesn’t comprise any pre-installed storage or server-related equipment.
A cold site is the barebone type among the three types and requires businesses to bring their own hardware to the site and activate the DR services by installing software and recovering the data from backups.
In addition, it doesn’t have a real-time data backup. Backups typically occur less frequently, and having network connectivity is not necessarily a prerequisite in a cold site.
If a disaster strikes, the IT staff of a company has to migrate essential systems and servers over to the cold site to make it comply with the workload of the primary site. Even though it’s the most cost-effective DR system among the three, the time it needs to back up and bring the business back into operation is significantly high.
Warm Site
It’s the middle ground between a hot and a cold DR site. This type of DR site typically comes with power and network connectivity to ensure the site is reasonably accessible. In one way, it’s “ready to go” – it has essential hardware and IT infrastructure pre-installed and up and running but intermittently.
A warm site is less capable and less functional than primary data centers. Like a hot DR site, a warm site doesn’t offer real-time backup facilities; backups occur daily or once a week, which can result in minor data loss.
However, it still needs a business to transport its mission-critical data for recovery in the event of a disaster.
Which One to Choose
Which type of DR site a business should choose hinges on the company specifications, unique requirements, and the level of control it needs to exert over the DR approach.
For example, businesses that run on mission-critical data and require a high-level redundancy should cash in on a hot DR site. This is because a hot site can offer faster failover with minimum downtime in the event of a disaster. On the other hand, businesses that do not have many data-intensive operations and can afford delays can go with
warm sites.
Large-scale enterprises that need complete control over their DR site and have enough space along with no budget restriction to implement and operate the site can go with an internal site. On the other hand, the benefit of an external site is that it comes with the option to outsource the disaster recovery service.
For instance, for businesses that need high-end flexibility and scalability in disaster recovery cost-effectively, cloud-based disaster recovery sites can be a great option. However, the security measures the CSP offers with this type of site should be evaluated first.
Importance of DR Sites
Businesses, no matter what, should always ensure uninterrupted services to their customers. However, a disaster, be it a cyberattack or a natural calamity, can disrupt optimal business operations, leading to dissatisfaction among customers. This is why enterprises should always have a DR strategy and a DR site in place.
DR sites play a critical role in ensuring resilience and continuity in business, while also protecting its critical data and systems.
According to a study, 57% of companies surveyed implement a secondary on-premise data center for disaster recovery.
Let’s go through some benefits of a DR site:
Helps Avoid Expensive Network Downtimes
Unplanned network downtimes are the last thing a business can afford. It can cost business millions.
Downtimes can cost a small business from $137 to $427 per minute. For a large-scale business, the loss of even a short outage can be as high as $16,000/minute ($1 million per hour).
With redundant network connectivity and critical systems ready at the recovery site, organizations can swiftly redirect traffic and resume operations, minimizing the duration of downtime.
Backing up the primary IT operations, data, and systems in a secondary site helps businesses redirect traffic and keep operations running, thus limiting the time of downtime. It thus helps businesses mitigate the costly impacts of network downtime.
Only Data Backup is Not Sufficient
Data backup is part of a disaster recovery plan that ensures no business-critical data is lost in case the company faces a disaster. But what if the primary data originating site is permanently damaged? A data backup system fails to enable on-time restoration of mission-critical services and applications following a disaster. This is precisely where a DR site enters the scene.
Copying and replicating the primary site in a secondary site helps businesses keep their systems and applications up and running from backup instances of virtual servers, even if the primary server fails or is disrupted. The result is limited downtimes, uninterrupted business operations, and augmented resilience during a disaster.
Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings
Replicating the primary infrastructure in the DR site enables companies to resume operations as soon as possible. It minimizes the need for implementing expensive emergency actions, for example, deploying temporary solutions, outsourcing services, etc.
How to Choose a DR Site
Deciding on what types of DR sites to invest in is the most challenging task while preparing a disaster recovery strategy. A company should ensure the DR site it chooses can meet all business specifications while addressing its requirements.
Let’s go through the factors a company should consider when selecting a disaster recovery site.
- Location: A DR site should be geographically separate from the primary data originating site to avoid jeopardising both sites during a disaster. While investing in a DR site, ensure you consider proximity, accessibility, power outage, location of the primary site, the type, and frequency of disasters that occur in an area, etc.
- Time: Two of the most significant things to consider while building a DR site are the Recovery Time Objective – RTO) and Recovery Point Objective – RPO. ) RTO is the maximum tolerable downtime after a disruption, while RPO is the acceptable data loss in a disaster recovery scenario. These factors help determine what level of backup capabilities, frequency of system replication, and promptness a DR site should provide. Make sure you conduct a business impact analysis to identify the required RTO and RPO you need.
- Budget: How much a company can invest in its system/operation recovery facility determines the type of DR site it can implement. Generally, the higher the resources, capabilities, and backup facilities a DR site offers, the higher the cost. Cost implications a company should consider while setting up a DR site include site implementation, maintenance, and operational expenses (OPEX). The best way is to compare different options and invest in the most profitable one that offers the best alignment between budget and functionalities.
- Security and Redundancy: Cash in on a DR site that comes with high-end security measures – robust access control, highly encrypted data/system storage, and monitoring facilities. Ensure evaluating the level of redundancy it provides in terms of backup, networking, and power supply. The higher the redundancy, the less the risk of operational disruption/failure.
