Hot vs Redundant Site?

Daniel333

So I am reading CISSP Exam Prep - Questions, Answers and Explanations ISBN 9780982576847.

Basically I am being told a site which can be restored in less than a few hours is a redundant site, and cannot be called a hot-site since since it's owned by the company.

Page 333 #23 states that "Hot sites are not owned by the organization but who will be using it". This seem arbitrary. I've never seen this requirement for the term hot site. Is the author stretching here? Or can someone elaborate with a reputable vendor with this as a requirement?

cyberguypr

NIST 800-34 states:

Hot Sites are facilities appropriately sized to support system requirements and configured with
the necessary system hardware, supporting infrastructure, and support personnel.

Mirrored Sites are fully redundant facilities with automated real-time information mirroring.
Mirrored sites are identical to the primary site in all technical respects.

As you mentioned, I've never ownership as a factor here. I would focus on differentiating them by the fact that mirror/redundant is ready to go NOW while a hot site requires an hour or two of massaging things to get them production ready.

TechGuru80

For starters, based on a google search of the ISBN, the book you are using is from 2010...so I would immediately get a current book and avoid dated/confusing/incorrect information.

Did the book give a definition for a warm site? It sounds like they are naming a redundant site the equivalent of a warm site...where you have equipment ready but data or backups need to be loaded. Unfortunately, redundancy is usually related to immediate fail-over, which would be a hot site...again get a current book and avoid old material...that book is several exam versions out of date.

paul78

cyberguypr wrote: »

As you mentioned, I've never ownership as a factor here. I would focus on differentiating them by the fact that mirror/redundant is ready to go NOW while a hot site requires an hour or two of massaging things to get them production ready.

It's probably just bad verbiage and intended to be more about accessibility and available infrastructure at the secondary site.

I always thought that the difference was a bit more nuanced.

Redundant sites can be cold, warm, or hot. A hot site is one where all equipment and infrastructure is ready to go. If the primary facility fails, people show up and get right to work. A warm site may need some manual intervention, and a cold sites may need an actual rebuild of systems but the infrastructure is already in place.

And mirrored sites are another type of redundant site which is a live site which are already staffed where both processing and support can be shifted in automated fashion. If its a call-center for example, there are already people there ready to take calls, phone systems already available, and IT systems online.

laurieH

Yes, I wouldn't worry too much about ownership under these circumstances. It probably becomes more relevant where there are SLA's or MOUs with other companies. Generally I would take 'redundant' as a synonym for 'backup'. The hot/warm/cold definitions are explained in the official study guide with reference both to lengths of time taken to get them operable AND the equipment available. E.g. I seem to remember that hot sites have include the data, warm include everything apart from the data and cold sites don't necessarily have the computing hardware in place. But best double check that.