"HELP! MY PHONE SWITCH WENT DOWN: BEST PRACTICES FOR TELECOM RECOVERY"

Transcription

1 Moving production and disaster recovery securely into the cloud. "HELP! MY PHONE SWITCH WENT DOWN: BEST PRACTICES FOR TELECOM RECOVERY"

2 HISTORY Ongoing Operations was formed in 2005 by a group of credit unions in the Washington, DC metropolitan area looking for better business continuity solutions. The CUSO has grown from serving a handful of local organizations to over 300 clients nationwide. As disaster recovery and business continuity have evolved, so have our solutions. Over the years, we have developed a complete range of solutions including: a hands-on professional services team to conduct the initial business impact analysis (BIA) and ongoing plan development, the web-based CU Recover platform, the latest in offsite data backup & recovery solutions, connectivity to critical third parties, data center space, and dedicated workspace. In 2010, we acquired Teneros, a leading provider of Exchange replication solutions. And in 2011, we acquired Cloudworks, an experienced cloud solutions provider. The Ongoing Operations Cloudworks solutions feature built-in backup and fully redundant infrastructure. They also allow credit unions to reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO) by leveraging the CUSO s world-class data centers for their combined backup and production needs Showalter Road, Suite 101 Hagerstown, MD info@ongoingoperations.com

3 WHAT YOU LL LEARN TODAY New technologies and trends Five key criteria that credit unions should use to evaluate their telecom providers Ways your credit union can save money without increasing risks CUSO solutions

4 THE OBVIOUS A modern business phone system is all about flexibility; flexibility to recover from disasters, flexibility to better serve members. A credit union today should view its business phone system not as a necessary expense but as a strategic advantage. Working without phones can be difficult but not insurmountable

5 THE NOT-SO-OBVIOUS Voice systems can be more complex than some core systems

6 THE NOT-SO-OBVIOUS Call Center Call Processing Voice Mail Long Distance Local Inter-branch Call Routing Multi-lingual VoIP Telephone Teller

7 NEW TECHNOLOGY AND TRENDS Today s voice systems are sophisticated integrated technologies that enable credit unions to provide round-theclock service to members world-wide Voice isn t enough but in most cases it IS preferred (just ask any call center agent) Member expects to be able to reach their credit union at all times The key difference is they will embrace multiple channels (voice, , sms, website, etc) Unified Communications Hosted and Managed Telecom Services

8 JUST A SIDE NOTE - HAVING THE RIGHT INTERNAL FOCUS Who s responsible? Facilities? Information Technology?

9 5 KEY CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING YOUR TELECOM PROVIDER 1.Quality 2.Service 3.Reliability 4.Flexibility and Scalability 5.Security

10 QUALITY Quality should play a big role in the selection process Impacts both internal and external users Quality is combination of speed, latency and jitter. Establishing SLAs and performance standards helps with comparison

11 QUALITY Pricing selecting a low cost carrier may not be the best option has to be part of an overall strategy of services Deregulation has enabled more private/local providers (including OGO) to offer these services at high quality and better pricing

12 SERVICE Customer service, response and repair times must meet your own service quality requirements as well as your RTOs Provider should be able to monitor and know in real-time when circuits are down, escalate properly, dispatch assistance and reroute traffic if needed

13 RELIABILITY Should be able to grow your business, not slow it! Ask provider if they own their network or lease it, what their escalation procedures are What is the providers own RTO in the case of loss? DR plan?

14 FLEXIBILITY AND SCALING Allows for upgrades, adding services/new products as your organization grows Has history of upgrading their own infrastructure and service offerings Ability to move locations w/out penalty Use of new technologies not legacy Avoid proprietary routers Avoid long term contract

15 SECURITY Ensure provider can meet regulatory requirements including encryption, password management, record retention, cyber threats Default passwords, no encryption and no active security controls is a recipe for disaster Ask for references from peers and colleagues (Leagues, CUNA, etc)

16 SAVING MONEY WHILE IMPROVING SECURITY (THE OGO WAY) Credit Unions generally have the following four distinct telecommunication requirements: Internet (ISP) Branch Connectivity (MPLS or T1 or VPN over Internet) Voice (Legacy PRI or SIP Trunks or Hosted VOIP) Third Party Connections (ATM, Debit/Credit, Online Banking, Federal Reserve etc.) Historically, credit unions have developed and maintained each of these components separately and with multiple providers. Over the past 10 years these technologies have all converged to be delivered as one solution.

17 SAVING MONEY WHILE IMPROVING SECURITY (THE OGO WAY) CUNA CSS partner for Telecom services for credit unions nationwide Provides last mile and local telecom services to credit unions Voice, Data and Internet Aggregation provides significant cost advantages

18 THE OGO SAVING EXAMPLE CU A $400 million asset credit union with 10 branch MPLS network with 10 mbps of Internet and 75 phones will probably spend about $22-28k per month. In the Ongoing Operations aggregate solution, we estimate that the monthly fees drop by between 20-40%. Redundant phone/voice services are even more complex and require consideration of hosted PBX and failover technologies

19 THE OGO DID REDIRECTION SERVICE Why Do I Need It? If you do not have a secondary phone system with auto failover and you want to be able to still receive phone calls in a Disaster Event What Are The Likely Outcomes? You will reroute your main inbound member numbers to pre-assigned DID numbers from OGO. OGO s phone system will provide a basic menu system (defined by the CU) and reroute the calls to cell phones and physical phones as requested. Why OGO? OGO offers a robust VOIP platform and system that is highly fault tolerant and highly likely to available when you phone system is not

20 OGO VOICE RECOVERY SIP TRUNKS Why Do I Need It? You plan on placing a backup phone switch at Ongoing Operations in case your main phone system or phone lines fail. What Are The Likely Outcomes? Your redundant phone system will failover to the backup phone system at OGO and your phone calls will be rerouted over the internet or an MPLS circuit back to the Credit Union. Why OGO? OGO offers a robust SIP platform and system that is highly fault tolerant and highly likely to available when you phone system is not. In addition, if you use OGO for production and backup SIP you can avoid paying for two sets of phone lines

21 How Can SIP Trunking Improve My Credit Union IT Strategy? Reduce your phone bill Just like VoIP saved your credit union thousands of dollars for inter-branch traffic SIP Trunking enables you to expand this savings to long distance calling. Ready to ditch your PBX? - Many SIP Trunking providers like Ongoing Operations will actually host your PBX taking over the hardware and administration. Enormous savings can be obtained by choosing to right source the administration and maintenance. Improve your voice recovery strategy All too often we see credit unions with NO backup plan for recovering their phone switch. Due to the complexity of older hardware and the associated and limited connectivity choices it has been common to essentially absorb this as a known risk and cross fingers and hope for the best. This is a true disaster waiting to happen. Members will forget that your core went down but they won t forget they couldn t reach you.

22 AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE 3 RD PARTY CONNECTIONS? Credit union third party connections are critical connections that nearly all credit unions have. These include online banking, credit card providers, ATM switch providers, shared branching, the Federal Reserve, and others. Credit unions today maintain permanent connections with these providers in order to deliver critical financial products to their members. For most credit unions, recovering this infrastructure in a disaster is one of their biggest challenges

23 HOW DO 3 RD PARTY CONNECTIONS IMPACT YOUR CREDIT UNION? Credit Card Switch (either real-time or batch) Enables credit unions to manage their card portfolios, perform authorizations, issue new cards, etc. (examples include PSCU, TMG, Visa DPS, etc.) Debit Card Switch (either real-time or batch) Enables credit unions to manage their debit card plastics, perform balance checks, etc. (examples include CO-OP, Star, MAC etc.) ATM Switch (either real-time or batch) Enables credit unions to manage their ATM cards (examples include CO-OP, Star, Mac, Cirrus, Fifth-Third bank, etc.)

24 HOW DO 3 RD PARTY CONNECTIONS IMPACT YOUR CREDIT UNION? Online Banking (real-time) Whether it is Harland, Digital Insight, Fiserv, or Open Solutions credit unions have permanent connections to their online banking providers. Without connectivity, members cannot check balances, review history, make payments, or use online banking. Federal Reserve (Fedweb or Fedline Advantage) This connection is used to download share draft, ACH, and wire files. Without it a credit union can very quickly increase its fraud risk and frustrate members. Shared Branch (CO-OP or FSCC) a lifeline in disaster situations as members can go to other credit unions for services. Not having a connection though the Shared Branch network will reduce available transaction sets and enforce limits to prevent member fraud. This can be especially frustrating during a disaster event when members need access to cash.

25 OGO CONNECTOR Platform Connectivity Choices Performance GEO Redundant Multiple Carriers Hardware Redundant Locally Redundant NCUA Compliant Online Banking Providers Credit Card Providers ATM/Debit Card Providers Other SAAS Solutions Shared Branching Managed Failover Annual DR Testing Segregated Data Auto Failover Options 24/7 Support

26 OGO CONNECTOR OGO has the expertise to assist in implementation, mitigation, etc. We can connect to your existing credit union network The price for all credit unions is lowered through CUSO aggregation Connector works with existing OGO Telecom Solutions Connector integrates with existing OGO Disaster Recovery Solutions OGO has intimate knowledge of credit union technology needs

27 OGO - CONNECTOR

28 OTHER OGO TELCOM SOLUTIONS Network Design Credit Union MPLS BGP Routing SIP Trunking Internet Service Provide (ISP) VPN Management Managed Router