“Must have” technology strategies for your credit union disaster recovery plan

When you see as many disaster recoveries (live and test) as Ongoing Operations does – it is hard not to notice trends in what “works” and what “doesn’t work”. Our review of the most successful recoveries during 2014 revealed some common strategies that created a better opportunity for success.  Let’s break down a few to see how they might fit into your credit union disaster recovery plan.

Data Vaulting/Replication

No disaster recovery plan is complete without a solid strategy to get your data offsite and quickly recoverable. Traditional tape backups can stretch your recoveries to multi-day events as your IT team is deployed to recover the tape, transport the tape to the DR location, load the tape … I think you get the picture.  Replication on the other hand  is simply the act of copying and then moving data between a company’s sites. It can be done synchronously, asynchronously, or near synchronous. It is typically measured in Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and is often used for mission critical applications. Tape backups on the other hand capture snapshots of data and do not ensure continuity of operations due to longer restoration times.

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