Cold Server

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What Does Cold Server Mean?

A cold server is a disaster recovery backup server that operates only if the main server is interrupted or fails. A cold server holds all main server files and programs and remains in an unpowered state until a backup is required.

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Techopedia Explains Cold Server

Once the appropriate software is installed on a cold server, it is turned off until it is needed. Because warm and hot servers may be cost-prohibitive, cold servers are preferred by most organizations. However, manual cold server downtime configuration is not always feasible, and a cold server demands substantial effort to bring it online. Nevertheless, this option is considerably less expensive when compared to warm and hot servers. In most cases, cold servers host low-level applications with minimal criticality.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.