What is Warm site?
Warm site Definition: A backup site that can be operational within a matter of hours.
Understanding Warm site
A backup site that can be operational within a matter of hours. A warm site is a partially equipped backup facility with hardware systems infrastructure and possibly installed software that can be made fully operational within hours or days following a disaster or outage. Warm sites represent a middle ground between cold sites minimal equipment and hot sites fully operational offering a balance between recovery time and cost. Warm sites are addressed in standards like ISO 22301 NIST SP 800-34 and business continuity frameworks. Organizations implement warm sites through facility arrangements equipment preparation data replication procedures staffing plans and recovery testing. For example a manufacturing company might maintain a warm site with preconfigured servers network infrastructure power and cooling systems that replicate data daily from production but require manual activation and final configuration during a disaster enabling business resumption within 24 hours at a fraction of the cost of a fully operational hot site while still meeting their recovery time objectives. Related terms Business continuity Disaster recovery Hot site Cold site Recovery site Alternate processing facility Recovery time objective RTO Backup site Business impact analysis.