Case Study Brief

CommunityWide

CommunityWide Federal Credit Union Achieves “Zero Data Footprint,” Superior DR and Highly Scalable Efficiencies in IT Environment Overhaul

About CommunityWide Federal Credit UnionHeadquartered in South Bend, IN, CommunityWide FCU boasts a heritage of 50 years. The firm has grown to embrace 11 branches in four Indiana counties. Deposits total $400 million. Word-of-mouth marketing and exemplary service have swelled membership to 45,000. CommunityWide is an affiliate of Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union (a credit union for more than 2,000 credit unions) of Naperville, IL, and thus takes advantage of a variety of Alloya’s financial and correspondent products and services that leverage the competitive power of aggregation. Alloya’s advanced technology is supported by OnX Managed Services of Lisle, IL.

Business DriversHaving a keen desire to keep end-users and customers happy and loyal, CommunityWide recognized the need for a powerful technology overhaul. The organization had a small space for hardware, hosted its own core processing, was not particularly physically secure, had IT headcount limitations and took non-holistic nightly tape backups for data and apps as its chief DR activity. But that’s not all.

Corporate data was not centralized and hard to control. Email data was isolated on individual machines and not backed up. Secure, wireless access into the computing environment was hampered by

LAN/WAN limitations. The burden of National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) compliance for DR,

security and data-control issues distracted management from growth initiatives.

Increasingly, though praised by its customer base for outstanding service, CommunityWide looked to migrate its computing environment offsite; leverage the efficiencies, cyber security and scalability of virtualized/cloud infrastructure; and alleviate risk and compliance drag by achieving a Zero Data Footprint. It was time to get the whole computing environment into the hands of cutting-edge pros who dealt with custom-aligned hosting and continuity issues 24X7. It was time to get out of the data-center business.

THE SOLUTIONLeveraging the due diligence and overarching support of Alloya, backed by OnX Managed Services’ experience and technology expertise, CommunityWide’s transformation from physical to virtual was precisely systematic, point-by-point road-mapped, incrementally documented and ruggedly tested. An important deliverable was CommunityWide’s ability to provide attestation to auditors that the interlocking elements of the new environment, especially regarding DR, were meticulously set up and proven to work well. Moving the entire environment over to OnX’s suburban-Chicago hosting/data center, with backup in an Indianapolis

different-power-grid center, involved a considerable amount of detail. Some initiatives of the four-staged approach included:

1. Using CommVault software, the team backed up data from CommunityWide’s physical site to a virtualized/cloud environment at OnX. This procedure included testing for full data restoration and DR. With migration complete, CommVault now backs up data in accordance with policy-driven markers.

2. Migration of systems production (including ERS core processing on Linux) to OnX using CommVault’s tool to set up virtualized machines, and using Zerto software to replicate data and apps to virtualized systems, and then keeping front-end production mirrored with backup production via ongoing replication. Zerto’s robust three-minute failover substantiated fast recoverability of systems in DR testing. The new environment also included implementation of Remote Desktop User Access, which now enables fast deployment of applications and changes to work stations with centralized RDS images.

3. Moving from a 3rd-party POP email provider to MS Office 365 Exchange online, integrated with the OnX hosting/data center. This now provides a centralized, secure email environment, with tracking, archiving, high availability ─ and gets rid of email residing on local machines.

4. Upgrading LAN/WAN network to include Cisco Meraki firewalls at all branch locations and the OnX hosting/data center. Monitored and managed by OnX, this super-secure network not only features firewalls but allows for routing, segregation and the use of Wireless Access Points, thereby paving the way for a variety of authorized physical and device-controlled entries into the computing environment.

Why OnX Managed ServicesOnX Managed Services, Lisle, IL, a premier North American service provider of comprehensive IT solutions, has become a partner in which many customers have 100% confidence. With OnX providing the technology intelligence, unparalleled service and hard work through Alloya’s detailed oversight, CommunityWide completely transformed its computing environment, gaining tremendous advances in redundancy/resiliency, scalability and overall business efficiency.

CommunityWide looked at other providers, but OnX’s overarching Zero Data Footprint solution aligned perfectly with a number of the credit union’s expanding business objectives, allowing the firm to leverage the help of Alloya and OnX in greatly reducing compliance distraction and freeing up IT personnel to concentrate on business issues rather than ongoing technical headaches. Greatly hardening the firm’s physical and cyber security, the transformation also eliminated problems with power, cooling, hardware failures and the internet. The solution enabled easier financial management with predictable OpEx planning and set the stage for smooth, fast deployment of new platforms and applications. Noted CommunityWide CEO Andy Burggraf, “By trusting in OnX and making this transition, we are a safer and more-secure company that can now really focus our resources on improving the member experience.”

OnX Managed Services adheres to ITIL best practices and holds SSAE 16 SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS certification. The service provider has racked up more than two decades of experience serving customers across a variety of industries.

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