Top 10 Measures to Ensure a Successful IT Disaster Recovery

Your credit union, more than likely, has in place an information technology team, an individual or a third-party provider that ensures your credit union’s day-to-day technology needs are met. However, do you know how secure your IT systems are. Now is the best time to reevaluate or in some cases evaluate your IT system and assess your credit union’s IT disaster recovery procedures.

Unplanned IT disruptions can throw you and your entire credit union into a tailspin. Not having access to emails, member data and your server can create a difficult situation for your credit union’s business productivity and your members. With this in mind, how comfortable are you with answering the following questions: Do you know if your credit union is ready for an IT meltdown? To where do you recover if you’ve experienced a sudden loss of computing systems?

If you currently have server management, email and data backups and recovery for all your systems, as well as around the clock monitoring – then you can sleep well at night. However, if you do not or if you are unsure of the answer, then you must plan, plan and plan some more.

To better help you prepare for a potential IT meltdown, strategize for when, not if a disruption occurs. Here are 10 measures for your credit union to take when analyzing your IT disaster recovery plan:

1. Perform regular risk assessments, such as Business Impact Analyses.
2. Prioritize risks based on likelihood and impact.
3. Identify possible responses to address or mitigate each identified risk
4. Decide on the best response(s) for each risk scenario.
5. Determine the steps required to implement the response(s) – this will include numerous activities ranging from performing regular data backups and obtaining and storing employee contact information offsite to contracting with a third-party provider for data center hosting, several states away.
6. Develop written plans for all identified scenarios.
7. Develop test criteria and procedures to test the plans.
8. Train employees on the plans – multiple times and ongoing.
9. Test the plans.
10. Adjust the plans based on the success of the testing, and then start over with item #1.