Ensuring business continuity for banks - affordably and effectively

In today`s uncertain world, business continuity and disaster recovery are critical concerns for financial institutions. Any number of manmade or natural causes can disrupt a bank`s communications and, therefore, its operations.

A financial institution might be victimised by politically motivated attacks, mischievous hackers, or even disgruntled employees. Lightning could damage a key facility or trigger a power loss. A virulent virus might penetrate the LAN and crash applications.

Regardless of the cause, disruptions to a bank`s network are devastating. All services and transactions abruptly cease, alerting regulators, undermining hard-earned competitive positions and eroding precious customer trust. In light of the stakes, banks require strategies to restore communications quickly in the event of catastrophe.

The real key to effective disaster recovery, however, is to avoid disruptions in the first place. Today, business continuity is ensured only with true networking resiliency and security throughout the LAN.

Perimeter firewalls and backup systems are no longer enough; bank managers must layer in precautions throughout their infrastructures. Below, we consider some innovative, next-generation strategies that help ensure the ongoing availability of enterprise-wide networking services.

Most failures in banks occur when the network core switch fails. The entire network ceases to function when its heart stops beating. Of course, advanced core devices offer resiliency with features like redundant blades and power supplies.

But as physical devices, they are vulnerable to today`s potential calamities. With a zero tolerance for business disruptions, financial institutions need more than resilient devices; their entire architectures must be resilient.

An infrastructure is resilient when it has no single point of failure. This means its core is distributed among more than one switch. Rather than rely solely on one costly and complex core device, banks can disperse core switching duties among multiple smaller platforms that are geographically dispersed.

Like the resiliency designed into the World Wide Web, if one system is removed from service, the others routinely handle the networking functions. To reduce complexity, IT managers can even control the distributed devices as one logical entity. In addition to continuity assurance, banks also gain greater networking performance with multiple core switches.

Moreover, distributed architectures permit cost-effective, pay-as-you-grow scalability. As financial institutions add users or branch sites, they simply install affordable switches to the core fabric, allowing just-in-time expansion without over-provisioning. The strategy eliminates crashes that occur when network cores are overtaxed and lowers the costs of high-availability infrastructures.

Enterprise firewalls prevent viruses, worms and unauthorised users from penetrating the LAN. These systems, however, are like moats, safeguarding only the network perimeter.

Should a hacker manage to pass through the firewall or access the network from within the LAN, banks are at risk to disruptions or theft of confidential data. This vulnerability extends to data backup sites, where servers and data tapes are at the mercy of intruders.

For greater continuity assurance, banks should safeguard not only the LAN, but also the individual devices composing it.

Embedded firewall solutions are firewalls installed on network interface cards (NICs) for servers, desktops and notebooks. Hardware-based and tamper-resistant, they enforce enterprise-wide security policies, allowing only authorised users to access each networked device.

Providing far more granular protection than perimeter firewalls, embedded firewalls offer a powerful, but affordable layer of security for the banking industry where continuity is crucial and data must remain confidential. Banks can even open their networks to stakeholders like partners, vendors and consultants, knowing they can limit access to sensitive network resources.

Advanced WAN routers are vital disaster-recovery resources because they deliver the flexibility to reroute traffic quickly and easily. This control permits financial institutions to rapidly restore services by redirecting data flows from a stricken site to other locations. Bank managers should consider vendors with broad router portfolios and who do not charge a premium for device functionality and versatility.

In addition to providing cost-effective, function-rich voice services, IP telephony can play a significant role in business continuity. With software-based VOIP running on servers, banks can distribute the devices for redundancy.

If a server crashes, voice traffic is redistributed to the others. Should an entire site fail, administrators can reroute traffic to other locations. Moreover, if the enterprise WAN crashes, they can offload long-distance services onto the public phone system. Traditional PBXs cannot provide this flexibility at anything resembling reasonable costs.

Consider only those VOIP solutions that are standards-based and have proven 99.999% availability. The right IP telephony infrastructure will lower costs and greatly enhance resiliency.

When disaster strikes, the fastest way to restore data and voice services is with wireless networking. The best systems provide robust, standards-based security, allowing banks to resume operations in compliance with privacy mandates.

In fact, advanced wireless LANs now offer much of the same performance and functionality as wired networks, but without the overhead and constraints of cabling.

When banks evaluate solutions to ensure business continuity, they also must consider their vendors. Choose a vendor that has engineered resiliency into its systems rather than provide it as a costly add-on.

A provider with a rich portfolio of solutions can layer security into the network infrastructure, ensuring flexibility and seamless integration. Additionally, avoid vendors with products that have known security flaws. Their solutions will only import these vulnerabilities into your system.

Like insurance policies, there are costs to ensuring business continuity. To reduce their expenses, banks must evaluate solutions that are cost-effective. For the best return on their investments, they should determine which vendor`s products offer superior price/performance ratios.

Moreover, turn to vendors who will partner with you to meet your bank`s needs. Because maintaining duplicate, backup networks is impractical, financial institutions should rely on providers who can quickly deliver the right equipment to the right place if needed.

When partnering with the right vendor, banks can reduce security costs while delivering business continuity that enhances their competitiveness and helps them win and retain their customers.