DuGood Credit Union

Credit Union Case Study

DuGood Federal Credit Union is a financial institution with 10 branches, headquartered in Beaumont, TX, serving over 28,000 members with more than $245 million in assets. DuGood was chartered in 1962 and serves members in Jefferson and Orange County.

Issue

A major hurricane had entered the gulf and changed track and was barreling down on the credit union. With their data center in the direct path, the credit union knew they needed to act and they needed to act fast. Not only did they have concern for the safety of the credit union but the safety of their staff. Their members would be evacuating soon and it was critical that they had access to their funds. The credit union had a business continuity plan and they tested annually with their disaster recovery service provider so they were prepared.

Solutions

The IT manager contacted IMS and declared a disaster. IMS staff worked hand in hand with the credit union to coordinate a graceful shutdown of their systems. Having instituted IMS’s remote backup solution, they were able to immediately begin backups directly to IMS’s data center in Corvallis, OR. In less than 30 minutes, the systems were backed up and IMS was able to begin the recovery process. Once the servers were recovered, balancing reports were ran on both the credit union and the IMS servers to confirm they both balanced. IMS then worked with the credit union’s third-party vendors to bring up ATM’s, shared branching and internet banking. Within 2 ½ hours, data center services had been successfully transitioned over to IMS.

The credit union staff was able to evacuate north to the Credit Union League in Dallas. IMS worked with credit union IT staff to establish data communications for their employees at the Credit Union League. IMS staff stepped in to help with operations while DuGood’s IT supported employees, setting up PC’s, printers and addressing all other technical issues.

The hurricane devastated the Beaumont area and it took close to two weeks before the credit union was able to relocate back to Beaumont. Once back in Beaumont, credit union IT staff worked with IMS to coordinate a smooth transition back to the credit union data center servers and re-establish third-party vendor communications.

Location
Beaumont, TX

Link
Visit Website

Services Utilized
Core Programming
Disaster Recovery
Backup
TrialBalance+

What the Client is Saying

Discover how we have transformed IT operations for numerous financial institutions, enhancing their efficiency, security, and compliance.

“There is nothing like being hit by a hurricane to test your disaster recovery provider and to determine if they are going to perform as expected. Fortunately for us, when hurricane Rita struck in 2005 and hurricane Ike struck in September 2008, IMS was there to assist us.

“Not only did IMS provide exceptional service during both disasters, they were in constant communication with us and worked tirelessly to ensure that our member services and back-office functions went virtually uninterrupted. During hurricane Ike, IMS ran our core systems and vendor communications from their hot-site for 10 days.

“Price point is always one consideration in our decision making processes. We found that IMS provides remote back-up and disaster recovery services for about the same cost as others are paying for disaster recovery alone. Additionally, IMS provides a more comprehensive solution than was available from other providers. The IMS remote backup solution allows us to go completely tapeless if we choose and if one of our servers goes down, we appreciate knowing that IMS will stand-in for a single server.

“Our initial impulse was to arrange disaster recovery services through our core systems provider. It was also extremely important for us to work with a DR company that had the knowledge and expertise to provide the services we required. After making onsite visits to IMS and our core systems provider, we concluded that IMS’s backup and disaster recovery solution would be just as good as one provided by our core system provider.

“One of our primary concerns in selecting a disaster recovery company was having the assurance that our member services and back-office systems would continue to function properly in the event of a disaster. After hurricane Ike, we know without a doubt, that all of our systems function as expected.

“Another reason we decided to contract with IMS was the fact that they already had third party connectivity in place with our vendors. In a disaster, third party connectivity is critical to providing our members access to their funds and other member services. We have been pleasantly surprised at how well the third party vendor services worked during the last hurricane.

“Our experience with IMS has been extremely positive and I would recommend IMS to anyone who is in need of a quality data backup and disaster recovery solution.”

Jason Summers

VP of Information Technology, DuGood Credit Union

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