3 Credit Union Disaster Recovery Plan Myths Debunked

BCP Mistakes, DR Mistakes

In today’s ever-changing threat environment, a Credit Union should be prepared to continue normal business operations in the event of any disruption or disaster.  A burst pipe can be as crippling to its operations just as much as weather events, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes – especially if you have a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) that IS NOT properly developed, implemented, tested, and maintained.  Do you know how well your Credit Union disaster recovery plan will work when it’s needed?

As little as 5 to 7 years ago, some Credit Unions based their DR plans on some now unsound assumptions.  With the growing demand for 24/7 availability of services, and the dependency of technology in our daily lives, plans should no longer be based on the following beliefs:

  • “We conduct a test our disaster recovery plan for IT each year, so we know they work.” – A successful test 6 months ago doesn’t necessarily guarantee the ability to recover from an event today.  Network infrastructures can change, operating systems and applications are upgraded/updated, and data volume is continually expanding.   More often than not, only a subset of applications is recovered during the annual DR test.  Optimally, the best way to determine if your DR plan will work as expected is to perform a full-scale test of all environments, applications and third-party services like ATM’s or Online Banking.  If you’re not able to perform the testing all at once, it can be broken down into several smaller tests.  By doing so, you’ll at least have a general idea of what to expect during an event.
  • “We can restore our critical applications because our data is backed up.” – While it’s an absolute must to back-up your data, those backups are useless unless you verify them by periodically testing the recovery of the data.  This is especially true if you still use tapes.  Tapes are a good choice for secondary backup, but with Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) running less than 24 hours, they may no longer be a viable choice.  It only takes a single bad tape to grind the recovery process to a halt.  Even if you use a cloud-based solution, it’s a good practice to periodically validate your data backups.  For ideas on testing your backups, read A Simple Guide to Effective Backup Testing.
  • “Successful failovers during testing verify our business continuity capabilities.” – Successful failovers are only half the test.  Failback, the process of returning to normal operations, is the true affirmation of your business continuity capabilities.  Any data that was created in failover mode needs to be replicated back to your production equipment, and then validated.  This process often takes longer than the actual failover, but it is critical in the overall recovery plan.

There’s no good time for an outdated Credit Union disaster recovery plan.  If your Credit Union plans are based on the three myths listed in this blog, now is the time to re-evaluate your DR plans and BCP.

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