Determining outage costs caused by a disaster can BEST be measured by the

The cost of redundant systems and backups measures preventive investment, not the actual cost of an outage itself, making it a planning metric rather than an outage cost measurement.

The cost to recover from an outage captures only one component of outage impact (remediation expenses) and ignores losses incurred during and after the outage period.

The overall long-term impact of an outage is the most comprehensive measure because it encompasses not only immediate revenue loss but also reputational damage, customer churn, regulatory penalties, productivity loss, and recovery costs. Business Impact Analysis (BIA) in disaster recovery frameworks evaluates outages holistically across time to determine true cost to the organization. This long-term, multi-dimensional view provides the most accurate and complete measurement of outage costs.

Revenue lost during the outage is only a partial financial metric and excludes indirect costs such as reputational harm, customer loss, legal liability, and long-term business disruption.