By Sam | March 30, 2015

4 Step Plan To Credit Union Cloud Readiness [Checklist]

In the Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity (DR/BCP) planning world we use the saying “It’s not IF something happens, it’s WHEN“.  The same is now being said for whether Credit Union’s will become cloud adopters – it’s no longer a question on whether or not to invest in cloud technologies – it’s when and more importantly, HOW? Now that the decision of “go/no-go” is becoming clearer, Credit Union CIO’s are finding themselves challenged to take the first steps to effectively and securely deploy strategic cloud solutions. We’ve developed this checklist to help you determine your Credit Union cloud readiness!

1) Know Your Infrastructure – Before you even begin to make a move to the cloud, you need to make sure you have the right network infrastructure in place to support anticipated traffic. Optimizing your network can improve uptime, latency and Quality of Service (QoS) when done properly.  So where do you begin?

• If you haven’t done so yet, document through detailed diagrams your entire infrastructure. I’m not talking about a high level visio diagram that shows just your core, a network connection and your firewall either. Now is the time to dig in and gain that intimate level of understanding of the physical and logical components. Use this information to identify single-points-of-failure, network bottlenecks and even vendor dependencies that are not aligned with your strategic goals.  If you don’t have the capability to do this in-house, partner with someone who understands Credit Union technologies and compliance requirements to assist. This is where you want your budget dollars to go – infrastructure improvements.

2) Calculate Your Bandwidth Requirements –   Simply put, bandwidth is what determines how much traffic can pass through your network at one time. It affects how quickly (or slowly!) things upload or download. To determine your bandwidth requirements you’ll have to understand your traffic. Your bandwidth requirements can also vary greatly depending on your proposed cloud strategy. For instance, if your first “cloud” move is to hosted exchange you will need to know your email volume and assess traffic patterns if any. For a cloud-based DR/BCP solution, you will need to understand your RTO/RPO’s in order to ensure your pipeline will support crisis related traffic. Set down with your current telecom provider and make sure they have the capacity to meet your future needs.

3) Develop A Plan – Actually, this should have been listed as second since  your overall cloud strategy is critical to determining your bandwidth requirements. Most Credit Union’s develop a 3-5 year technology plan and may have already started the planning process. For most though, they are waiting to see if the hype was accurate and let the  early adopters pass on their lessons learned before jumping in. The time is NOW to map out that 3 year plan – something simple will get you started.

• Hosted Exchange (Year 1)
• Backup/Replication  (Year 2)
• Managed Security (Year 3)

4) Stock Your Tool Chest – Because there are some many variations of cloud technologies, you’re going to want to make sure you completely understand your options both before and after your selection of a cloud partner. To do this:

• Talk with your peer Credit Union’s to discuss their strategies and references.
• Dig into the vendor educational material and be prepared to ask questions. With NCUA’s tightening of the vendor oversight, the vetting process should be fairly straightforward.
• Have the tools to monitor/manage your cloud infrastructure. Just because you have gone to the cloud, doesn’t mean you just turn the switch and walk away. Your provider should be able to provide detailed reports of activities, patch status, SLA’s, etc.

For more information on cloud adoption or determining your Credit Union cloud readiness, be sure to visit our eBook library and download our latest ebook on Credit Union Clouds.

Want to learn more about the services that Ongoing Operations provides? Click here.

Interested in what OGO is up to? Subscribe to our blog today!