GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.–Four CUSOs that are part of the cuasterisk.com network—CU*Answers, CU*Northwest, CU*South, and Site Four—have launched a project to deploy new IBM servers in two separate data centers, according to the company.
Site Four’s production server, which handles the daily core data processing for the 70+ CU*NorthWest and CU*South credit unions from their data center in Yankton, S.D., is scheduled to be replaced with a new IBM POWER8 server. In conjunction with that production server, a new IBM POWER8 high availability server will be deployed at the CU*Answers Kentwood, Michigan data center. Both servers will be synchronized and brought online by mid-October, CU*Answers said.
“Our teams have been planning this project for several months to coincide with the expiration of Site-Four’s lease of their current high availability environment at the end of their 2017 fiscal year on Sept. 30,” said CU*Answers Executive Vice President Scott Collins commented. “The project was given a ‘go’ by leaders from all four CUSOs and the equipment is now at each site. The new backup server will go live before the end of September, and we are targeting a mid-October completion of the final cut-over to the new production environment. As with a dozen or more similar projects within our network over the past decade, we expect this to be non-disruptive for each of the 70+ credit unions that rely on Site-Four for their daily core operations.”
Collins noted that while the timing of this cut-over was put into place many months ago, the recent weather events in the Southern U.S. “were a reminder that the significant amount of investment—both financially and with sweat equity—that our network has done for over a decade is a critical success factor for our partners’ ability to survive and thrive. And leveraging the latest IBM server technology will help ensure our collective business continuity goals.”
Meanwhile, AuditLink, the audit and compliance division of CU*Answers, recently announced the return of its Network Compliance Group. “We have had a lot of previous members and new clients ask us to revive the group, so we are!” stated Marsha Sapino, AuditLink assistant manager.
The group was started by Sapino in 2011 when she worked at Meijer Credit Union, a client of CU*Answers. “I wanted a group of peers that I could have discussions with regarding compliance related topics,” Sapino added. “So, I contacted a handful of local credit unions that also use the CU*BASE software.” The group had round robin email discussions and met in person periodically.
When Sapino shifted employment from the credit union to CU*Answers in 2012, the network group came with her. “The email strings continued and we still had our meetings, but shifting priorities and new initiatives resulted in the group falling apart.”
Now, the group is back and bigger than ever, the company said with more than 100 members from California to New York. The group will hold quarterly meetings held via web conferencing tools to allow all to attend and participate.