Cold Site

Definition(s):

A backup facility that has the necessary electrical and physical components of a computer facility, but does not have the computer equipment in place. The site is ready to receive the necessary replacement computer equipment in the event that the user has to move from their main computing location to an alternate site.

Source: NIST CNSSI 4009-2015 from NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1
NIST SP 800-34 Rev. 1 under Cold Site

An alternate facility that already has in place the environmental infrastructure required to recover critical business functions or information systems, but does not have any pre-installed computer hardware, telecommunications equipment, communication lines, etc. These must be provisioned at time of disaster.

Source: BCI/DRJ

A cold site is a type of data center facility that is equipped with basic infrastructure such as power, cooling, and physical security but does not include any hardware or software. It is a backup facility used in the event of a disaster or outage at the primary data center.