By Kirk Drake | April 20, 2014

What Are The Most Important Features To Consider In A Secure Cloud Partner?

If you are like many Credit Union CIO’s right now, you have made the decision to move forward with cloud services for some part of your infrastructure. Perhaps you are considering hosted exchange or implementing a backup strategy such as the OGO Replicator to pursue shorter RTO/RPO’s. Regardless of the reason, the next step is choosing the right vendor to support your goals.  We’ve put together a quick checklist to help you navigate through the vendor selection process!

ASK QUESTIONS  – ASK A LOT OF QUESTIONS

It goes without saying you’ll probably ask many questions during the vendor presentations – but if you want to see how really good of a match they are for your Credit Union start with these:

• How does the vendor’s security model compare with that of your Credit Union?
• Where is my data physically located?
• What type of service level agreement (SLA) would be acceptable for your Credit Union and members for this application?
• How does the SLA proposed by the vendor compared with internal downtime the Credit Union currently experiences?

Now that you’re warmed up, let’s see if they know our industry. It’s one thing to provide cloud services – but to provide cloud services to CREDIT UNION is a big plus.

• Is the vendor familiar with Credit Unions and the multiple third party connections they require (e.g., Federal Reserve, core processor, online banking vendors, debit and credit card processors)?
• Is the vendor familiar with the security requirements for Credit Unions required by the NCUA and spelled out in the FFIEC IT Examinations Handbook?

And lastly, let’s not forget service. Were you able to ask the questions you wanted during the presentation or was the sales person more interested in talking about their company and their products?  REMEMBER – this is about YOU, not them.

• How does my business partner work when things go wrong? Do they keep me fully informed? Do they provide all of the information? Will they tell me when they goof?
• Do they have a solid process for insuring that their technology will keep pace with the right trends?
• Do they listen well?

Are you concerned about where your data ends up? Do you have know how you are going to get to the cloud and what you will move first? If you have these or other questions fill out our short form below: