-: In addition to having redundant power,
redundant data, redundant networks
and redundant servers,
we also have to think about a redundant site.
What's a redundant site?
Well, let's consider if your office building was flooded.
You're going to need a new place to work.
That's a redundant site.
Now if you're really concerned about downtime,
you could have a redundant site
up and ready to go at all times.
Redundant sites are classified as one of three categories.
They're either hot sites, warm sites
or cold sites.
Now, a hot site is a near duplicate
of your original location.
It's going to have it where the organization
can move in and be up and running within minutes.
That means they have servers, phones, desks,
lights, power, connectivity, everything.
It's just as if you've picked up
and went to a different building that day.
A warm site instead is going to have some of those capabilities
but not all of them.
It's going to have things like the computers and phones
and servers there, but they may not be configured
or patched or updated.
And so when people show up,
you're going to have to install their user accounts
or set up their configurations
and things like that,
before the users can start working.
Now a cold site is going to have things
like tables and chairs and bathrooms
and maybe some technical setup like basic phones
and data and electric lines.
But, it doesn't have computers,
it doesn't have servers.
And none of it's configured.
And so if you have a cold site,
that might take you a couple days to get back online.
So, which one should you use
and how do you decide?
Well, this is all a cost risk benefits analysis.
Let's take an example of you being a credit card processor.
If you're American Express or Visa or Mastercard,
you need to make sure your servers are up
at all times, you can't afford a minute of down time.
I read in one report that these processing companies
make about a million dollars a day in fees.
And so they can't afford any kind of down time,
because it costs them big money.
So if I was a credit card processor,
I would want to make sure that I had a full hot site
and it was redundant, manned and ready to go
at a moment's notice.
Now, if I'm a smaller company, like I am,
Dion Training, we can probably deal
with being down for a couple of hours
or maybe even a day or two.
And so for us, we would look at something like a
warm site or a cold site,
because that would be more appropriate.
And so when you're trying to choose a site, remember this.
Hot sites give you the most capability,
but they have the largest price tag.
A cold site gives you the least capability,
but it's also the cheapest.
And so you're going to have to figure out
based on risk versus reward
which one your company's willing to accept
and which one's appropriate for your situation.
(upbeat music)