DR site
A secondary location where systems can run if the primary site becomes unavailable.
The classic tiers are hot, warm, and cold: hot runs continuously in parallel, warm has hardware ready needing data and startup, cold has space and power but nothing installed.
Cloud has largely replaced physical DR sites for smaller organizations, since capacity can be provisioned on demand rather than paid for while idle.
Where this comes up
DR site sits inside our backup and disaster recovery work. If you are trying to work out what this means for your own environment rather than in the abstract, that is the page worth reading next, and a short call will get you a straight answer faster than either.
Related terms
Warm site A recovery location with hardware and connectivity in place but requiring data restoration and startup before use. Failover Switching operation to a standby system when the primary one fails. Disaster recovery The process and capability for restoring IT systems after a major failure or destructive event. Recovery time objective The maximum time a system can be unavailable before the impact becomes unacceptable.