Prospera Credit Union is one of the largest credit unions in Canada. It has 60,000 members, 17 branches, six commercial banking centres, ten insurance offices and a contact centre - and ambitious growth plans. The management team had decided to pursue a bank charter that would allow Prospera Credit Union to operate a "virtual" bank, offering a full range of online banking services to customers across Canada. However, before it could expand, Prospera had to improve its disaster recovery capabilities in the areas of technology and workforce facilities. In addition to meeting provincial standards, the new virtual bank would also have to meet strict national standards to earn its charter.

Prospera Credit Union

As Prospera began looking for a service provider, Greg Dyck, Chief Information Officer, was particularly impressed with TELUS. "They seemed to be the only company with a disaster recovery consulting practice," he says.

As Dyck had expected, the partnership with TELUS began with a discussion of business needs. TELUS did a comprehensive Business Impact Analysis to identify Prospera's critical business applications and their required recovery times. TELUS then proposed a range of alternatives.

Prospera opted to replicate their data to a number of servers installed at the TELUS intelligent Internet Data Centre in Calgary, with additional servers available via quick-ship from SunGuard in the event of a disaster. Prospera's head office and branches have access to the replicated data they may need, so no matter where a disaster occurs, quick and efficient recovery is always assured.

The highly secure environment at the Data Centre features a fully-redundant power supply and Internet connectivity, with round-the-clock security and monitoring. Prospera owns and manages the servers and has 24 hour access to them at the data centre, a fact that gives them significant flexibility. The credit union's own IT resources can swap servers in and out whenever necessary - and, best of all from Dyck's point of view, they can test part or all of the solution at any time. "There's no fixed test window or hours per year," he says.

Keeping everything going

When it comes to disaster recovery services for Prospera's workforce, TELUS also provides a work recovery area, with twenty-five seats available at any time. Each seat features a desk, telephone, PC and connectivity to the credit union's network, ensuring that vital functions such as the call centre can continue working, no matter what happens.

Fully tested before implementation, the solution has since passed its toughest test to date. "The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions is a fairly stringent regulator," says Dyck. "They were impressed enough with our facility to award us our charter. We are in business."

Disasters can be costly