For one week, from November 6-13, credit unions on the CU*NorthWest and CU*SOUTH core processing CU*BASE platform operated from systems at the secondary data center in Kentwood, MI as part of a robust high-availability (HA) program. On Sunday evening, November 13, recovery teams performed procedures to return core processing to the production data center in Yankton, SD. The reverse configuration is used for credit unions on the CU*Answers core processing CU*BASE platform, where the production data center is located in MI and the secondary data center in SD.

“A reciprocal data center strategy is much more than a building, hardware, and a network,” states Jim Lawrence, VP of Business Continuity and Operations. “The human element, the talent and skills required to perform rollovers and failovers, often under extreme conditions, is paramount in today’s always-on, 24/7 financial services market. Participation in each other’s success adds a layer of resilience that can withstand sudden disruptive incidents. Leveraging the resources across the CUSO partner network enables each to focus on what it does best; to serve credit unions.”

Both CU*Answers and Site-Four conduct live production high-availability rollover tests every six months, ensuring that recovery time objectives (RTO) are met should an emergency failover be necessary. Information about the CU*Answers HA strategy can be viewed on their website with full gap analysis reports available for download.