CU*NorthWest, an information technology cooperative CUSO based in Liberty Lake, Washington, participated in a successful production disaster recovery test of its high availability replication environment. The test began on November 5th when CU*NorthWest moved all production operations from its primary data center to an out of region secondary data center where it maintains a second production environment that replicates data in real time. Credit unions across the nation, executing from a single CUSO-owned operations facility, participated directly in the rollover test. All credit unions operated in the backup datacenter for three days, after which the entire network was moved back to the production facilities.

The test is part of the company’s ongoing disaster recovery and business continuity strategy that includes out of region high availability replication, EFT switch, credit union branch connectivity redundancy and backup operations and technical teams. CU*NorthWest is a partner/owner of its own production center CUSO Site-Four in Yankton, South Dakota. Site-Four maintains high availability and redundant systems throughout its partner network cuasterisk.com.

Testing helps ensure that facilities are operating as designed and assists in continually improving the disaster recovery and high availability design and process execution. Components of redundant facilities are continuously tested with full rollover tests done at least bi-annually in order to continuously improve disaster recovery and business continuity strategies. The CUSO continues to test to ensure that it is well-exercised and operates at a near immediate failover capability with state-of-the-art data replication technologies.

Greg Smith CEO of CU*NorthWest stated: “What we continue to do together with our client credit unions is impressive. Most tests are simply simulations or very quick recovery exercises outside of the normal service delivery to account holders. We not only tested the rollover and the integrity of our strategy and engineering, but we ran every client in this environment for 3+ business days—our client-owners were all active testers and participants in the test. The level of confidence in our disaster recovery planning, approach and execution has been validated through this process. We are not left guessing whether it will work because we just proved it and that builds confidence.”