Which of the following is the best way to ensure that the company’s backup tapes can be restored and used at a warm site?

A.
Ask the offsite vendor to test them and label the ones that were properly read.

B.
Test them on the vendor’s machine, which won’t be used during an emergency.

C.
Retrieve the tapes from the offsite facility and verify that the equipment from the original site can read them.

D.
Inventory each tape kept at the vendor’s site twice a month.

Explanation:
C: A warm site is a facility that will not be fully equipped with the company’s main systems. The goal of using a warm site is that, if a disaster takes place, the company will bring its
systems with it to the warm site. If the company cannot bring the systems with it because they are damaged, the company must purchase new systems that are exactly like the original
systems. So, to properly test backups, the company needs to test them by recovering the data on its original systems at its main site.
A is incorrect because a warm site is a leased or rented facility that is usually partially configured with some equipment, but not the actual computers. Staging a facility with duplicate
hardware and computers configured for immediate operation is extremely expensive, so a warm site provides an alternate facility with some peripheral devices. This is the most widely
used model. It is less expensive than a hot site and can be up and running within a reasonably time period. It may be a better choice for companies that depend upon proprietary and
unusual hardware and software, because they will bring their own hardware and software with them to the site after the disaster hits.
B is incorrect because testing backups on machines that won’t be used during an emergency does not provide assurance that the backups will work on the machines that will be
used. The backups should be tested by recovering the data on the original systems at the company’s main site because these systems will need to be moved to the warm site in the
case of an emergency.
D is incorrect because inventorying backup tapes does not provide assurance that the data on the tapes will be properly recovered. The tapes must be tested by recovering the data
on them on the systems at the company’s main site.