Offsite backup
A backup copy kept at a different physical location from the systems it protects.
It covers the events that destroy a site: fire, flood, theft, or a burst pipe over a long weekend. A backup appliance sitting beside the server it protects shares the server's fate.
Cloud backup is the usual form now. The constraint to plan around is how long a full restore would take over your available bandwidth, which is often longer than people assume.
Where this comes up
Offsite backup 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
Cloud backup Backing up data to a cloud provider rather than to local hardware. 3-2-1 rule Keep three copies of data on two different media, with one copy offsite. Recovery time objective The maximum time a system can be unavailable before the impact becomes unacceptable. Bandwidth The maximum rate at which data can move across a connection.