What is a cold site in the context of disaster recovery?

In the context of disaster recovery, a cold site refers to a location that is designated for backup purposes but does not contain actual data backups or applications ready for immediate use. Instead, it typically has the necessary hardware, such as servers and networking equipment, set up, but it requires additional time and effort to bring it online after a disaster has occurred. This type of facility is not immediately operational; instead, it serves as a standby location that needs to be equipped with up-to-date data and applications to become functional.

This contrasts with other options where a fully equipped backup site would be ready to take over operations with minimal downtime, a temporary operational facility would imply a place that can quickly start functioning after a disaster, and a remote online backup service refers to cloud-based solutions that continuously back up data in real-time.