Though many people like to think spring is the time for most natural disasters like floods and tornadoes, many forget that the warm summer temperatures and dryness of fall can create perfect conditions for tornadoes, fires, and severe thunderstorms in the US. And if this year has taught us anything, it’s that you can never be too prepared.
“Recent events have highlighted the importance for credit unions to perform ongoing reviews of their plans for disaster preparedness and response,” says the National Credit Union Administration’s Chairman JoAnn Johnson. Disaster recovery and disaster planning are important all the time, but the best time to protect yourself and your credit union from them is before that first disaster or close call.
Eliminate Downtime
It’s the worst feeling in the world to be face-to-face or on the phone with a member and you have to tell them, “I’m sorry, our network/system just went down.” The uncertainty and confusion that downtime creates can negatively affect your business, your employees, and your customers.
Any good disaster recovery provider should be able to tell you exactly how they will deal with and minimize downtime in the event of a disaster. Their – and your – top priority should be to minimize downtime and restore business operations promptly.
Offer Real-Time Solutions
Having a disaster recovery system in place prior to “disaster-heavy seasons” (fall and spring) means your data is constantly being backed up and protected, so when disaster strikes, you can begin the recovery process automatically and with little to no data loss.
Serving community members means that losing their data could result in losing their patronage. Any disaster recovery solution you choose should have real-time solutions that are running in the background at all times, giving you constant peace of mind.
Data Center Routing
Disasters don’t just mean a tornado or fire wipes out some or all of your credit union’s physical location. Sometimes, it’s just a quick power outage or a single server crash. Disaster recovery can also include having a data center take the load and carry it while you repair and recover the crashed server. IMS can route anything from a single location to multiple branches of your credit union. Sometimes, disasters are small and isolated, other times they are all-encompassing, and you need solutions in place for issues of any size.
Re-Evaluate and Customize
Putting a disaster recovery plan in place is a great way to protect your credit union, but as 2020 has shown us, something can come out of the blue and create brand new, unheard-of issues. One of the biggest mistakes credit unions make is implementation without re-evaluation.
Putting a fire extinguisher in the office is great – but not testing it for 5 years is not. The same is true with your disaster recovery protocols. Every year, you should evaluate your plans. Does your recovery provider have new or updated solutions that could improve your own strategies? Have you talked to them about customization for your branches in the southeast regions versus those located in “Tornado Alley”? It’s worth your time to think about it.
Protect Your Credit Union Now
IMS offers private cloud services and offsite data storage. It is important for you to safeguard your member data at all times, but especially when your credit union is affected by a disaster.
Contact us to find out how you can protect your credit union and its members with our disaster recovery tools.
