Top ways to improve your DR test (and your recovery)

If your credit union has never done a disaster recovery test, this post won’t make much sense.  However, If your credit union is planning on complying with your FFIEC guidelines and doing at least one Disaster Recovery test this year, this post will help make your disaster recovery test go smoother.

Each year, Ongoing Operations helps over 100 credit unions do full blown Disaster Recovery tests. In addition we do a couple of actual recoveries each week.  We tend to believe that there are two types of people in this world, those that backup their data and those that will.  While backing up your data is great, it really doesn’t accomplish much of anything if you don’t test, test again, test some more and work out all of the kinks in recovery.

Consequently, here are six things from our Dynamite Level 3 Support Team and our Crack Business Continuity Planners to help you prepare for your next Disaster Recovery Test.

  • Do – Ensure the credit union properly schedules (far enough out – we recommend at least 90 days) with their 3rd parties so they are available to test when they are scheduled to actual perform the recovery. This will allow for proper and thorough testing as well as reduce the need for retests.
continue reading »