A company is looking to improve its disaster recovery posture by replacing its current cold site. The primary goals are to achieve a low Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and to have the ability to rapidly scale resources during a disaster without a large initial investment. Which of the following DR site types BEST meets these requirements?
The correct answer is a cloud site. Cloud-based disaster recovery provides the flexibility to scale resources on-demand and operates on a pay-as-you-go model, which minimizes large upfront capital expenditures. This model can achieve a low Recovery Time Objective (RTO) comparable to a hot site without the associated high costs of maintaining duplicate, fully operational physical infrastructure.
A hot site is incorrect because, while it provides a very low RTO, it requires a significant initial and ongoing financial investment to maintain a fully replicated environment.
A warm site is incorrect because, although it is an improvement over a cold site, it still has a longer RTO than a hot or cloud site and does not offer the same level of on-demand scalability.
A cold site is incorrect because it is the solution being replaced and is characterized by a very high RTO, as it has no pre-staged hardware.