By Sam | October 27, 2015

3 Strategies To Consider When Planning Your New Credit Union Datacenter

As a Credit Union CIO you stand a high probability of needing to move/expand your Credit Union datacenter over the course of your career. In this post we will look at various strategies that smart Credit Union CIOs are considering prior to making a final call on a new data center configuration. So if you have a new headquarters or data center on your to-do list, then this post is for you.

There are many reasons to move a  Credit Union data center, sometimes it’s voluntary, and sometimes it’s not. Maybe you are opening a new headquarters, your old data center where you lease rack space is closing down or has been repurposed, or maybe your current location doesn’t provide you with the level of security and redundancy to meet your needs as a CU and it’s time to find a new home for either your production or DR environment. The key is knowing what your opportunities are so that those opportunities don’t slip through the cracks.

Let’s discuss some options when the time comes to actually pick up and move your IT infrastructure equipment to the new location:

1. Apples to Apples – The first and most obvious thing you can do is pick up your old equipment and set it up in your new datacenter identically to the way you architected it in your last datacenter. This is probably the simplest plan, and will allow you to continue operating as you have been. We don’t really consider this an “opportunity” as you will likely only experience improvements in data center security and redundancy, and that’s only if the data center you choose or build has security and redundancy upgrades from your previous location.
2. Partially Hosted – So you aren’t ready to move everything into a hosted environment but you want to take advantage of virtualization and making sure your data is secure and offsite. By implementing a partially hosted architecture, you can keep the physical equipment you aren’t ready to replace, while still being able to take advantage of the great features of a virtual environment including: Scalability, high availability, lower long-term recurring equipment investments, infrastructure redundancy, and employee related resource allocation to maintain and manage your Data Center. If your long-term plan is to eventually move to a fully hosted environment, this is a great step in that direction and will also allow you to take a phase approach to get there.
3. Fully Hosted – In this scenario – as a Credit Union, you have made the philosophical decision that you no longer want to be in the Credit Union datacenter business. All the stress and upkeep related to the care and feeding of owning and operating a data center takes time away from key employees that you want focused on Credit Union projects to help grow members and assets. Many Credit Unions want to go fully hosted, but just can’t seem to figure out how to get there. Maybe it’s a high level math equation focused around managing a specific budget, a contract issue with multiple vendors and staggered termination dates, or a disconnect between the CFO and CIO/CTO.

Whatever the concerns may be, when the time comes to pick up and move, there is often some flexibility as there is going to be a forced spend – the question is not, will we spend the money, but how will we spend the money.

Being in a forced spend situation offers the distinct opportunity to make some decisions that would otherwise not be possible. These situations are rare, but they do come up for CU’s about every 5-10 years. The key is, when these opportunities do become available, decisions are made that don’t simply continue the status quo, but set the Credit Union up for future success and functionality as Credit Union technology continuously develops.

To discuss your potential opportunities with one of our experts in more detail please do not hesitate to reach out today! Also, remember to ask about our TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) model Ongoing Operations developed to help bridge the gap between your Finance and Technology departments. Meshing the business needs/initiatives with the Technology needs/initiatives of the Credit Union will allow the organization to take a more holistic approach to how IT related decisions are made.

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