EvidenceSheet
FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) · CP - Contingency Planning

CP-6 Alternate Storage Site

Establish alternate storage site with agreements to permit storage and retrieval of system backup information.

Source: FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline), CP-6. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) in the compliance library.

A FedRAMP baseline is a subset of NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, enhancements included.

6
artefacts
2
held by a system
2
at each review
moderate
to go live
Backup / DR tooling
where the evidence lives
teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

  • Backup replication configuration to a separate region and a test retrieval from the alternate storage · Backup / DR tooling
  • Backup schedule, retention, and offsite or immutable copy evidence · Backup / DR tooling

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

  • Annual tabletop and full failover test reports · Backup / DR tooling
  • Alternate processing site contract and capacity attestation · Vendor register / contract repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

  • SSP CP-6 statement naming the alternate storage location or region, its separation from the primary site and retrieval arrangements · Document repository
  • Contingency plan with recovery time and recovery point objectives · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 2 of 6 artefacts that already live in a system (Backup / DR tooling); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

CP-4(2) Alternate Processing Site · CP-6(1) Alternate Storage Site | Separation from Primary Site (CP-6(1))