Community Bank Improves Network Performance and Organizational Agility While Cutting Costs With SD-WAN
As a family-owned community bank with over 50 branches throughout Montana, The Bank relies on virtual desktops, line of business applications, and unified communication solutions delivered from multiple data centers to provide their customers with essential services. Most of The Bank’s branches were connected with legacy Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). However, some smaller branches in remote rural areas used metered internet connections to access the network while work-from-home workers connected via commodity broadband.
The Bank was transitioning to cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) applications, and their aging legacy MPLS-based network was proving to be slow, expensive, and inflexible. The Bank determined that leveraging a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) architecture could help cut costs, enhance organizational agility, improve network performance, reduce downtime, and strengthening their security posture.
The Bank deployed an enterprise-wide SD-WAN solution that leverages MPLS where needed to reduce dependencies on congested public networks. Aging on-premises internet gateways were replaced with VMWare VeloCloud edge devices. VeloCloud’s flexible SD-WAN architecture enabled The Bank to develop and deploy a high-performing network that securely supports application growth and network agility while simplifying branch and end-point implementations. VMWare Horizon View was deployed to simplify the administration and delivery of personalized virtual desktops. The new network architecture featured redundant internet connections which are load balanced to optimize performance and allow business continuity when the preferred internet connection fails to ensure workers stay connected.
Reducing its reliance on MPLS is saving The Bank thousands of dollars. The flexible, reliable, secure SD-WAN infrastructure reduces complexity and simplifies management with an intuitive console for managing the network across all branches. Velocloud’s enhanced visibility into traffic patterns has enabled The Bank to prioritize and optimize network traffic. VeloCloud reduces downtime for maintenance and provides templates that simplify provisioning and managing networks at new branches. The SD-WAN architecture enables The Bank to apply security profiles to specific network segments and helps The Bank manage compliance with stringent banking regulations.
Summary
The Challenge
MPLS connections were
slow, expensive, and
unreliable. Bandwidth
metered internet
connections added
additional expensive and
inconsistent billing.
Business Goals for SD-WAN:
- Reduce dependencies on
MPLS - Streamline operations
- Reduce downtime
- Better optimize network
traffic - Enhance organizational
agility
Solution:
- VMWare Velo Cloud
- VMWare Horizon View
Results:
- A resilient, faster network
- Significant cost savings
- New branch deployment –
quick & easy - End-to-end network
visibility - Simplified management
- Reduced complexity
Making the Business Case for SD-WAN
