What is the difference between a hot site, warm site, and cold site?

A hot site is a fully equipped alternate facility with hardware, software, data, and network connections that can take over operations within minutes to hours, offering the fastest recovery but at the highest cost. A warm site has hardware and network infrastructure but requires data restoration from backups before operations can resume, typically taking hours to days. A cold site is an empty facility with basic utilities like power and cooling but no equipment, requiring days to weeks to become operational. The choice depends on the organization's recovery time objective and budget.