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    Hybrid IT environment delivers stress-free tech aid to Cooperative Processing Resources

    Partnering with Sungard AS lets the Cooperative Processing Resources IT team focus on enhancing the services “that we do best” and leave the data hosting and management expertise to its partner.

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    Overview

    case-study-logo-cpr-200x100

    Cooperative Processing Resources (CPR) is the industry’s premier Debt Management System (DMS) provider, delivering IT and technical support to nearly half of the 63 credit counseling agencies – large and small – that comprise the cooperative that owns Dallas-based CPR.

    Specifically, CPR provides centralized development and technical support for the advanced debt-management software on which these agencies run. In other words, CPR ensures that the software is running smoothly and securely for the agencies it serves. Its DMS Professional Suite product encompasses DMS Manager™, DMS Solutions™ and DMS Web™.

    About Cooperative Processing Resources

    • Headquarters: Dallas
    • Credit-counseling industry’s premier Debt Management System provider and a Texas Cooperative association
    • Revenue: $1.7-2.2 million annually
    • Sungard AS Solutions: Cloud; Managed Services (Hybrid IT)

    Customers don’t need to keep up with hardware advances, or worry about operating system or database management updates, new patches or new Windows and SQL releases.

    Director, Software Development, CPR

    Challenge

    Critical infrastructure requires expertise and versatility

    CPR has gradually come to depend on Sungard Availability Services to fulfill more of its infrastructure needs. Initially, in 2001, it chose Sungard AS to provide data-hosting and data management services for its members’ database. Later, CPR extended its contract to cover all of its data processing and application hosting requirements.

    More recently, CPR expanded its hosting partnership with Sungard AS to provide managed and hybrid IT services, migrating data from multiple colocation based servers to Enterprise Cloud Services in the fall, reducing its per-month costs by nearly 30 percent.

    In addition to offering IT support, Sungard AS delivers a high level of security with which other vendors couldn’t compete. Todd Montague Director of Software Development CPR.

    Being a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider, CPR depends on a technology partner to host and manage its critical infrastructure, allowing it to focus on its premier debt-management software applications. Sungard AS hosts many of CPR’s agencies’ data and, without access to the application, these member agencies can’t provide credit counseling services to their customers who in turn cannot meet their financial obligations to creditors and lenders.

    Solution

    CPR President Kate Campion says the company initially tapped Sungard AS over several other vendors because of the versatile support it offers. She explains that CPR’s members’ IT departments and their level of expertise varied from very sophisticated to nonexistent.

    Some of CPR’s customers tried to obtain local assistance through local contract network and IT people, but some weren’t successful. So as a benefit to its members and to support many of its agencies easier, CPR chose Sungard AS. Thirty-one of its 63 agencies host their data with Sungard AS.

    CPR’s agency customers also benefit because they’re not required to have a database onsite, a database manager or virtually any level of IT expertise. This is especially attractive to CPR’s smaller agencies who can’t afford to have that level of expertise on staff.

    “Customers don’t need to keep up with hardware advances, or worry about operating system or database management updates, new patches or new Windows and SQL releases. They don’t worry either about handling nightly backups of their database, because Sungard AS handles that,” says Todd Montague, director of software development at CPR.

    In addition to offering IT support, Sungard AS delivers a high level of security with which other vendors couldn’t compete. And using Sungard AS’ Managed Cloud helps CPR DMS Professional Suite products meet Pay Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements.

    Benefit

    Data stays safe through Hurricane Katrina

    Because its agencies are scattered around the country, CPR has benefited from being able to rely on Sungard AS’ data storage, data retrieval and disaster recovery services. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina’s devastation struck New Orleans, one of the offices CPR serves was under water and couldn’t reopen for several months.

    “All the data was safe, and the customer could handle payments and other responsibilities from a branch office that wasn’t affected by the storm. Without that data protection, that office would have ceased to function immediately,” Campion notes.

    Business benefits

    • Round-the-clock IT support and seasoned technical expertise
    • 30% Reduction in IT costs by moving to the Sungard AS cloud
    • Data protection and high availability in times of disaster

    More recently, flooding and lightning in several Midwest cities in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska affected agencies served by CPR, but their data was safe and secure, and access to it was uninterrupted.

    case-study-logo-cpr-200x100

    Cooperative Processing Resources (CPR) is the industry’s premier Debt Management System (DMS) provider, delivering IT and technical support to nearly half of the 63 credit counseling agencies – large and small – that comprise the cooperative that owns Dallas-based CPR.

    Specifically, CPR provides centralized development and technical support for the advanced debt-management software on which these agencies run. In other words, CPR ensures that the software is running smoothly and securely for the agencies it serves. Its DMS Professional Suite product encompasses DMS Manager™, DMS Solutions™ and DMS Web™.

    About Cooperative Processing Resources

    • Headquarters: Dallas
    • Credit-counseling industry’s premier Debt Management System provider and a Texas Cooperative association
    • Revenue: $1.7-2.2 million annually
    • Sungard AS Solutions: Cloud; Managed Services (Hybrid IT)

    Customers don’t need to keep up with hardware advances, or worry about operating system or database management updates, new patches or new Windows and SQL releases.

    Director, Software Development, CPR

    Critical infrastructure requires expertise and versatility

    CPR has gradually come to depend on Sungard Availability Services to fulfill more of its infrastructure needs. Initially, in 2001, it chose Sungard AS to provide data-hosting and data management services for its members’ database. Later, CPR extended its contract to cover all of its data processing and application hosting requirements.

    More recently, CPR expanded its hosting partnership with Sungard AS to provide managed and hybrid IT services, migrating data from multiple colocation based servers to Enterprise Cloud Services in the fall, reducing its per-month costs by nearly 30 percent.

    In addition to offering IT support, Sungard AS delivers a high level of security with which other vendors couldn’t compete. Todd Montague Director of Software Development CPR.

    Being a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider, CPR depends on a technology partner to host and manage its critical infrastructure, allowing it to focus on its premier debt-management software applications. Sungard AS hosts many of CPR’s agencies’ data and, without access to the application, these member agencies can’t provide credit counseling services to their customers who in turn cannot meet their financial obligations to creditors and lenders.

    CPR President Kate Campion says the company initially tapped Sungard AS over several other vendors because of the versatile support it offers. She explains that CPR’s members’ IT departments and their level of expertise varied from very sophisticated to nonexistent.

    Some of CPR’s customers tried to obtain local assistance through local contract network and IT people, but some weren’t successful. So as a benefit to its members and to support many of its agencies easier, CPR chose Sungard AS. Thirty-one of its 63 agencies host their data with Sungard AS.

    CPR’s agency customers also benefit because they’re not required to have a database onsite, a database manager or virtually any level of IT expertise. This is especially attractive to CPR’s smaller agencies who can’t afford to have that level of expertise on staff.

    “Customers don’t need to keep up with hardware advances, or worry about operating system or database management updates, new patches or new Windows and SQL releases. They don’t worry either about handling nightly backups of their database, because Sungard AS handles that,” says Todd Montague, director of software development at CPR.

    In addition to offering IT support, Sungard AS delivers a high level of security with which other vendors couldn’t compete. And using Sungard AS’ Managed Cloud helps CPR DMS Professional Suite products meet Pay Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements.

    Data stays safe through Hurricane Katrina

    Because its agencies are scattered around the country, CPR has benefited from being able to rely on Sungard AS’ data storage, data retrieval and disaster recovery services. In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina’s devastation struck New Orleans, one of the offices CPR serves was under water and couldn’t reopen for several months.

    “All the data was safe, and the customer could handle payments and other responsibilities from a branch office that wasn’t affected by the storm. Without that data protection, that office would have ceased to function immediately,” Campion notes.

    Business benefits

    • Round-the-clock IT support and seasoned technical expertise
    • 30% Reduction in IT costs by moving to the Sungard AS cloud
    • Data protection and high availability in times of disaster

    More recently, flooding and lightning in several Midwest cities in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska affected agencies served by CPR, but their data was safe and secure, and access to it was uninterrupted.