A community credit union’s path from VMware outages to cloud resilience

This article describes how Carter Credit Union, a $770 million institution serving 45,000 members across northwest Louisiana, migrated from an aging on-premises VMware environment to AWS to improve resilience and reduce costs.

• Previous infrastructure had single points of failure; fiber cut and hardware failures caused 24-hour and 3-day outages respectively
• Three-person IT team executed phased migration without external consultants while maintaining continuous member service
• Team completed AWS training on cloud server management, auto scaling, and cost optimization
• Projected savings of $70,000+ from avoided hardware replacement, eliminated VMware licensing, and reduced overhead
• Improved security posture with encryption, identity management, and continuous monitoring capabilities
• Deploying Interactive Teller Machines (CarterLIVE!) to expand access in rural and underserved areas

Small credit unions can modernize critical infrastructure through phased cloud migration with proper training and peer guidance, without requiring large IT departments or massive budgets.