At NWCU, we offer ourmembers mobile and online account access in addition to variousloans and savings accounts, meaning the availability of ourapplications is imperative to providing the quality service,convenience and personal touch our members have come to expect fromus.

Like many credit unions, we rely on financial tools andapplications to run our business, the information that creditunions use to serve their customers effectively includes financialand personal data. A disaster recovery plan needs to be in place toprotect their company and member data should a disaster, whether itbe man-made or natural, occur.

When faced with a crisis without a comprehensive BC/DR solutionin place, companies can encounter datacenter downtime, potentiallyleading to loss of important data, applications and even revenue,not to mention a damaged reputation. It is important to have yourbusiness and IT operations protected should a disaster occur.

During NWCU's search for a disaster recovery solution for ourvirtualized IT environment, we identified four key benefits adisaster recovery solution can provide a credit union.

When you need it

Having a backup solution does not mean you have a disasterrecovery plan. A true BC/DR solution will automate the recoveryprocess, meaning in the event of a disaster, the VMs on theprotected site will shut down and the replicated VMs from thereplicated site will be started automatically. This process shouldbe quick for mission-critical applications and is something aregular backup solution cannot accomplish. It's critical that wehave 24/7 coverage, minimizing downtime and providing availabilityto applications and data at all times.

Replicate only necessitiesOften, resources are wasted onreplicating VMs that are infrequently used or nonessential. A trueBC/DR solution will allow you to replicate exactly what you need –just the VMs and the associated VMDKs. In our case, this reducedour costs while freeing up much needed storage by eliminating bothwasted bandwidth and storage space.

Real replication

BC/DR solutions that leverage the cloud can provide continuousor near-continuous replication in addition to data protectionservices. BC/DR industry leaders offer similar benefits but do notnecessarily guarantee similar results. Having low recovery timesare a great way to differentiate between otherwise comparablesolutions. This will help you find a service that will not onlyminimize data loss in the event of a disaster but also ensure fastaccess to mission-critical applications and data.

Failover testing

Having the option to failover test, testing a system's abilityto recover, is arguably the most important feature of a BC/DRsolution. An enterprise class BC/DR solution should give you theoption to run a DR test whenever you want, regardless of where yourDR site or business is located. The ability to successfully bringVMs from the DR site to production site ensures that criticalinformation and applications are protected.

When researching a new disaster recovery solution for yourbusiness it's important to first identify what your needs andobjectives are. Whether you're looking for a solution that'shardware agnostic, provides near real-time replication or reducesyour RTOs /RPOs or all of the above, it's important to conductthorough research and compare different solutions before choosingthe one that best fits your budget.

Regardless of your specific needs, it's ultimately important tominimize risk to your business and customers by choosing a truebusiness continuity and disaster recovery solution that willprotect your information and provide minimal down time in the caseof an outage.

Gregory Ireland is network manager at Northwest CommunityCU. He can be reached at [email protected].