Top 5 Considerations for Credit Union Backups
by Kirk Drake
Most credit unions have already evaluated and moved to online backups. Some are even on their second or third generation of online backup software. Whether this is your first rodeo or your third – Ongoing Operations has reviewed and tested lots of different software and have determined the following to be the key essential things to consider when assessing your credit union backups:
Encryption
If you work for a credit union than you know – this is the most important component. Any backups need to be encrypted and you need to make sure that you control who has access to your data. Some options enable you to encrypt and for the supplier to decrypt the data. Some just have you use a VPN to send the data encrypted. In our opinion, the best option is to pick a software or solution that enables the credit union to set its own encryption key and for the credit union to be the only one who can decrypt the data. This is the most secure scenario and ensures that your member’s data is always protected and you are always NCUA compliant.
WAN Transport
It is one thing to backup your data locally. However, if you want to get it offsite and to your hotsite – we highly recommend evaluating your WAN transport software. Many solutions include this (the OGO Replicator solution does…) but not all. Ultimately, the quality of this software can greatly impact your cost and reliability of the solution, so don’t overlook its importance. You need to be able to efficiently transmit both full and incremental backups offsite at least once a day. The software needs to be able to be set so that you don’t drown your available bandwidth and you will need something that is probably better than simply using TCP/IP. Something that uses UDP is a good choice as it can use the available bandwidth much more significantly. Finally, the WAN transport software needs to be able to validate that your data got where it was supposed to go and be easily stopped and started. Your transmissions will undoubtedly be interrupted occasionally and without good functionality you will find yourself regularly restarting transmissions and resending data that has already been sent.
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