Quoted by experts as the most significant storm to hit these isles in over 25 years, ‘Storm Éowyn’ provided the perfect backdrop for demonstrating the resilience of our Shared Services and Private Cloud infrastructure, ensuring the impact on and disruption to our Credit Unions, was limited.
To align with the Central Bank of Ireland’s Operational Resilience guidelines and upcoming D.O.R.A obligations, phased enhancements in Datacentre architecture and best-in-class detection tools have strengthened service continuity preparedness. “Business as usual” might seem boring, but its smooth operation is a success worth celebrating. The absence of drama is a testament to the strong processes and support behind it, making it all the more deserving of recognition. Just as we were able to respond to the ‘Crowdstrike’ data security incident last summer that impacted big-tech and Banks globally, the super-efficient automated identification, centralised Shared Services environment and a collaborative/proactive support chain made this very much a boring non-event.
Key reference points included;
Identification
The incident was identified through proactive monitoring techniques and cross referenced with automating alert tools, which provided near-real-time visibility into the state of our systems. While the media weather forecast indicated potential disruptions, our monitoring systems enabled us to track site-specific outages as they occurred.
Timelines
We all had early notice of potential disruption given it was a ‘red weather warning’ which allowed us to communicate with our customers 2 days prior to gather information on whether they planned to open their branches. Once the incident began to affect sites, our monitoring systems alerted immediately, allowing us to identify who may be impacted within minutes of downtime occurring. This swift identification was critical in initiating recovery efforts and maintaining continuity of services.
Sites that were impacted
On-premise/non-Cloud sites felt the brunt of the disruption due to the reliance on network config locally. However, the great news is, these customers were back up and running within 1 hour of power restoration, so the impact was still minimal. We’re delighted that all Cloud-hosted customers remained unaffected due to the inherent resilience and centralised continuity provided by the Shared Services platform.
How did the Cloud meet the demands of ‘Storm Éowyn’?
- Centralised Continuity of Service: Even for Credit Unions with site disruptions, critical services (including online banking, debit cards and EFTs) remained operational, with transactions queued for on-site processing once systems and power were restored.
- It eliminated single points of failure: The centralised architecture of our Cloud platform ensured that no individual site’s downtime affected the overall service availability.
- Proactive recovery planning: Cloud customers benefited from automated resilience mechanisms, ensuring uninterrupted access to essential services.
- DR4 wasn’t required: Our DR4 (Disaster Recovery) process was fully prepared to recover any Credit Unions that were not back online by Monday. However, due to the swift recovery efforts over the weekend, DR4 activation was not required. The recovery teams successfully restored all systems by Sunday, eliminating the need for failover. The readiness of DR4 showcased the effectiveness of our disaster recovery strategy and how it serves as a robust safety net when needed.
A Testament to Resilience
Storm Éowyn served as a real-world test of our operational resilience capabilities, and the results speak for themselves. Thanks to proactive planning, robust infrastructure, and a collaborative approach, our Shared Services and Private Cloud platform ensured minimal disruption to Credit Unions, even in the face of the most severe weather event in decades.
This event reaffirms the importance of ongoing investment in resilience, whether through advanced monitoring, centralised continuity, or disaster recovery preparedness. While no system is entirely immune to challenges, our collaboration with customers and ability to mitigate risks, respond swiftly, and maintain uninterrupted service is a testament to the strength of our approach.
Operational resilience isn’t just about reacting to incidents; it’s about ensuring that, even in the most extreme circumstances, “business as usual” remains just that. And when resilience works as intended, the best success stories are often the ones that seem the least dramatic.
If you wish to learn more about Operational Resilience at Wellington IT or you have any questions about this blog post click here, to access our Compliance and Risk Management webpage or contact Ben Roy at ben.roy@well-it.com
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