A hot site is a fully equipped datacenter that can take over operations at a moment's notice. It typically includes the necessary hardware, software, telecommunications, and connectivity capabilities identical or nearly identical to the company's primary datacenter. This ensures immediate operability after a disaster, matching the corporation's requirement for maintaining network operations and availability with minimal downtime. In contrast, a cold site is an empty datacenter that requires setup and provisioning of equipment before becoming operational, and a warm site is partially equipped but would still require additional configuration and provisioning time. Cloud-based recovery saves data and applications on the cloud, but depending on the setup, it might not offer the immediate operability of a dedicated hot site.