JERSEY CITY, N.J.-The winner of the 2012 Horsetail Technologies/Credit Union Journal "Extreme Network Makeover" has successfully implemented over $100,000 worth of new technologies and now has a more efficient, secure operating system.
"We have been rather busy getting everything done," said Liberty Savings FCU's CEO Jim Miller Sr. "We are so pleased to have a uniformed system now and are thankful to everyone involved."
It was Miller's son, Jim Miller Jr., Liberty Savings chief information officer, who submitted the essay that was singled out of nearly 100 entries all seeking to win the Extreme Network Makeover. "I didn't even know that he wrote the essay and sent it in, so I was shocked when I found out we had won," said Miller Sr., who oversees three branch locations and approximately 16,000 members.
Mark Berman, principle and co-founder at Horsetail Technologies, which co-sponsored the contest with Credit Union Journal, said that in mid 2013 Liberty Savings is a transformed institution. "Lead partner Dell and Dell Sonicwall have created a hardware platform upon, which the credit union will operate with planning, efficiency, security and economically in the future," said Berman.
While winning the prize was exciting, it was soon followed by exhaustive work. The first step was assessing the credit union's network and creating 16 different booklets that identified weaknesses and strengths, inefficiencies and security issues, noted Berman, adding that a main focus was data-loss prevention.
"Horsetail's core philosophy is to look beyond technology to the member and employee needs and then match up those needs with the appropriate technology," said Berman. "After assessing the then current state of the network and making a presentation directly to the board of directors, Horsetail worked with Liberty Savings to find appropriate hardware and create a robust data loss prevention program."
As part of the package, Liberty Savings received an assessment that investigated data-loss prevention, e-mail monitoring and encryption, antivirus, end point security, unified threat management, firewall management, mobile device management, data encryption, active directory monitoring and reporting, content filtering, network monitoring, reporting and alerting, risk mitigation plan and incident plan.
After the assessment was completed, the $69 million-asset credit union's efficiency model was studied. As part of that 2012 assessment, Horsetail discovered the credit union was operating many physical servers that were drawing electricity, requiring hardware maintenance and warranties. "At the close of the makeover there will be only two Dell servers: an R320 for the domain and an R720 for the rest of the network," said Berman. "The remaining servers have all been virtualized."
The Backbone
The Dell R720 acts as the backbone of the new network providing ample memory, hard drive space and processor power, noted Dell's merchandizing consultant Navneet Kaul who initiated the project with Berman. "This makeover will help upgrade their systems and be more efficient via virtualization and license simplification," said Kaul.
Dell's Microsoft Enterprise Brand Manager Laura O'Melia said Liberty Savings' new Primary Server: R720 includes dual e5-2670, 96 GB RAM 1333, 6-600 gb 10k or 15k SAS drives, two quad port NIC cards, Enterprise IDrac, mission critical support, perc with one gb cache for RAID 10 with hot spare, dual power supplies, rails and management arm, and a server 2012 datacenter. The Domain Controller: R210II includes single E3-1220, eight GB ram 1333, 2-300 gb SAS 10K drives, enterprise iDrac, pro support, perc 200 for RAID 1, rails and management arm and server 2012 standard.
"All of the applications operate far more quickly than they did on their original hardware," said Berman. "At the branches, the best of the hardware from headquarters was repurposed and virtualized to allow each branch to move from three servers to one."
A Secure Advantage
The evaluation also addressed security-related issues. To this end, a variety of security, IPS, content filtering and VPN devices were consolidated onto a high-availability pair of Dell Sonicwall NSA 2400's at headquarters and to a TZ-215W for each branch, explained Berman. "These devices are [unified threat management] devices that secure the credit union while only having one device to support and maintain."
Prior to the Makeover, Liberty Savings, like many credit unions, was using one PC solely for wire transfers. Berman and his team, which includes principal and co-founder Chris Sachse, discovered that no funds had been inappropriately wired; however vulnerabilities existed.
"As part of the makeover this PC was virtualized. A limited list of users, only those who were authorized to make wire transfers, was created and applied so that no one else could even access the PC," said Berman, who added that reporting software was installed providing monthly reports of exactly who accessed the PC, for how long and when.
Liberty Savings also now has regular reporting delivered by the 10th of each month for every PC, user, printer, switch and server. "With this information delivered on time and accurately the credit union can provide security to its members and compliance data to the NCUA," said Berman.
An Eye-Opener
For Miller, such vulnerabilities were a real eye opener. "Our first penetration test, I nearly died of shock as 800 hits came up." Since the first test, and implementation of new services, there have been nearly forty more tests.
"On our last test that number dropped to four. And even if you get to zero, two days later you might see a few more because new areas of vulnerability are always popping up."
Another change resulting from winning the makeover: Liberty Savings' former part-time technician, Mark Boryszewski, is now a full-time employee at Horsetail Technologies.
