There is often confusion over the meaning of some of the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery industry's terms. These Service Definitions have been created by Recovery Point to clarify the meaning of common industry terms in the context of the solutions that Recovery Point provides.
Integrated Business Continuity Solutions – The Recovery Point Definition
A family of complementary services focused on protection of data, IT disaster recovery and continuity of business operations provided by a single provider, at all-inclusive locations. These services can be delivered individually or integrated in any combination, enabling smooth and rapid recovery in the event of an unplanned disruption to normal operations.
Hot Site
Secure data center facilities with redundant electrical, mechanical and network infrastructure containing an array of shared, vendor-provided information technology assets (servers, disks, tapes, printers, etc.). Customers subscribe on a monthly basis to Hot Site recovery technology configurations which mimic their production environments and periodically test them by simulating disaster events. In the event of an actual disaster, customers occupy the Hot Site and utilize their technology configurations to reconstitute their operations for up to six weeks.
Cold Site
Secure data center facilities with redundant electrical, mechanical and network infrastructure used after a six-week Hot Site occupancy period has expired. The Cold Site is populated with the customer’s specific recovery technology configurations during the six-week Hot Site occupancy period, after which the customer may transition operations to the Cold Site for up to one year.
Work Area – Continuity of Operations (COOP)
Fully provisioned end user workspaces and private offices collocated with Hot Site facilities provided on a shared-risk basis and available for 24/7 occupancy at a moment’s notice. Individual workspaces are equipped with a PC or virtual desktop, VOIP phone with ACD, desk and chair. Work Area facilities incorporate meeting and conference facilities, integrated data center space that can be populated with customer-specific IT equipment, and amenities such as secure parking, kitchens, sleeping quarters and lounge areas.
Off-Site Tape Storage and Transportation
Secure, climate-controlled magnetic media vaults and associated delivery services utilized to protect customer data backup media. Trained librarians administer tape slotting and cataloguing processes and support customers with on-line inventory and media reconciliation services. Trained couriers in unmarked, climate-controlled trucks transport current and expired media between Recovery Point and customer locations. Courier services are provided 24/7/365 for emergency return of media to customer locations and to Hot Site facilities for testing and actual disaster events.
Electronic Data Vaulting
The electronic transmission of backup data to redundant disk-based storage systems at one or more secure, remote locations (as opposed to the physical shipment of backup tapes to an off-site tape vault). For additional security, the redundant, disk-based storage systems are backed up to durable media such as tape at one or more additional remote locations. Restoration of data can be accomplished by downloading it directly from a secondary site or requesting delivery of physical backup media. Common forms of electronic data vaulting include virtual tape libraries, SAN-to-SAN data replication, disk mirroring and backup of specified data to remote, vendor-supplied storage systems.
Hosting (Managed Continuity)
Secure data center facilities provisioned with redundant electrical, mechanical and network infrastructure in which customers locate their own equipment for production or disaster recovery purposes. Redundant, diverse paths to multiple Tier 1 network providers, scalable power and cooling resources and on-site support services are provided. Hosting facilities are used to support the most mission-critical applications and typically offer SAS70 Level II compliance audits, high-availability Service Level Agreements assuring 99.99 percent or higher continuous availability and design compliance with Uptime Institute Tier Level or other accepted industry standards.