Cold Standby
Cold standby is a disaster recovery strategy where a backup system or server is kept offline and inactive until needed, typically requiring manual intervention to activate it in case of a primary system failure. It involves periodic data backups or replication to the standby system, but the standby remains powered off or in a minimal state, not processing live traffic. This approach is cost-effective but results in longer recovery times compared to more active standby methods.
Developers should learn and use cold standby for scenarios where high availability is not critical, such as non-production environments, archival systems, or applications with low uptime requirements, as it reduces operational costs by minimizing resource usage on the standby system. It is suitable for small to medium-sized businesses or projects with budget constraints, where occasional downtime is acceptable, and manual recovery processes are manageable, such as in backup servers for infrequently accessed data or development/testing setups.