At CU*Answers, silence is golden and it was the best indicator of success in their May 12, 2004, total production redundancy rollover. It is one of the most significant technical achievements that CU*Answers and their 85+ credit unions ever attempted. Consider that more than 1,000 credit union employees, over 700,000 credit union members, literally dozens of third party networks and ancillary vendors were all completely rolled over to a redundant High Availability iSeries for a live 24-hour, mid-week period, and all members were able to reach their credit unions through every channel available without exception.
Randy Karnes, CEO at CU*Answers says, “Most people take network and IT redundancy and interruption (disaster) planning for granted, or just do not want to talk about it. Many only make plans, occasionally dry-run the processes, and rarely speak of their commitment to ‘real’ efforts, believing It’s cheaper to pay later for the mess, risk member inconvenience, and cross fingers in hope that nothing happens on their watch. This effort is worth the commitment, and it speaks to the values of being responsible to owners (members). CU*Answers future growth of these ideas and capabilities and how we leverage what we are learning will make this not just insurance but a competitive advantage for our clients.”
“Did you cancel the rollover?” asked John Yeomans, CEO of 10,000 member TBA Credit Union in Traverse City, Michigan, when he didn’t notice any change in service on the scheduled date. “The success of this ‘test’ replaces huge segments of our disaster recovery planning.”
Raymond Ward, CEO of Kent County Credit Union in Grand Rapids, Michigan said, “It gives our credit union great confidence and peace of mind. Not one member of my staff actually noticed anything changed during the rollover. It’s an achievement that we should all be proud of.”
“We have spent many months of hard work and invested significantly in hardware and other resources in order to create an environment where redundancy is part of production – a constant state of readiness to replace our primary operating resources with stand-in and backup resources. Production redundancy is more than an insurance policy at CU*Answers, It’s a way of doing business.” says Jody Karnes, CIO of CU*Answers and industry expert.
If you want to read up on the high availability project, visit these resources on our web site:
- High Availability and Production Redundancy: http://www.cuanswers.com/highavailability.php
- Disaster Planning: http://www.cuanswers.com/client_disasterPlanning.php
- CU*Answers System Availability: http://www.cuanswers.com/systemavailability.php