Republic delivers new digital services and superior customer experiences with Aruba EdgeConnect
Kundenprofil
Republic Bank & Trust Company operates over 40 banking centers and dozens of interactive teller machines (ITMs) in the U.S. states of Kentucky, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee. The bank has over $6B in assets and is a top institution on the Newsweek “America’s Best Banks” ranking.- Vertical: Financial Services
- Location: Louisville, Kentucky, United States
- Customer size: 42 retail banking centers in five states
Use Case
Support banking center innovation, including on-demand debit card printing and live video streaming, by modernizing branch connectivity to ensure reliable application performance, fulfill regulatory compliance requirements and reduce enterprise risk by adopting an automated, self-driving SD-WAN platform.
Requirements
- Provide high-quality video streaming for a growing network of ITMs
- Enable securely segregating data traffic to fulfill compliance requirements
- Automate deployment of compliance requirements and modernize connectivity
Outcomes
- Power on-demand and live streaming services while minimizing networking costs and reducing deployment times from weeks to hours
- Answer compliance requirements by automating and streamlining traffic segmentation using advanced, intuitive tool sets along with next-generation SD-WAN capabilities
- Boost productivity and profitability by delivering significantly improved employee and customer experiences
In a highly competitive financial services environment, Republic Bank sought to introduce new digital services, such as on-demand debit card printing. However, the plan demanded more than bank's legacy wide area network (WAN) could supply.
"To meet PCI [Payment Card Industry] and Mastercard requirements, debit card printing traffic must be completely isolated," explains Sean O'Mahoney, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Technology Services. "We could've rolled out a solution that included installing firewalls in every banking center, but that approach wouldn't scale well, would've been a management nightmare, and was cost-prohibitive."
Banking Centers Modernized with Aruba SD-WAN
Committed to its tradition of personalized customer service, Louisville Kentucky-headquartered Republic is a community bank operating 42 banking centers in five states. As a technology leader in its market, Republic relies on its WAN to connect all of its locations and support innovations such as video-driven interactive teller machines (ITMs).
When the institution began planning to layer on the on-demand debit card printing service, compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) regulations, and even more stringent security requirements from Mastercard, presented IT with a whole new set of challenges.
Republic's IT team decided it was time to transition away from its dependance on an aging, hardware-enabled WAN, using MPLS circuits, in favor of modernizing with a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN). Also critical: avoiding branch or ITM downtime due to periodic MPLS outages.
In collaboration with its trusted integration partner, SHI International, the bank evaluated solutions and selected Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise, a self-driving SD-WAN platform by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.
"Although the cost of deploying EdgeConnect was about the same as a WAN router upgrade, we acquired many more features and benefits with SD-WAN than we otherwise would have with a traditional WAN router model," O'Mahoney says.
Obtaining Intelligence Innovations and Boosting Security with SASE
With its new EdgeConnect SD-WAN Republic obtains multiple intelligence innovations while also streamlining administration by implementing Aruba Orchestrator for centralized SD-WAN management.
The platform also forms the foundation for a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture, which significantly improves protection for users and assets.
Immediate overhead elimination rewards
The bank's most immediate cost and overhead reduction rewards stemmed from leveraging software-enabled firewall and routing capabilities resident within EdgeConnect, rather than the traditional approach of deploying firewall and router hardware.
"If we had to put firewalls in every location, that would mean manual deployments and a lot more devices to configure and manage," says Eric Hubbard, Infrastructure Technology Manager. "Instead, we can create a firewall template in Orchestrator and deploy it in few clicks or taps. It's was as simple as that."
In addition, EdgeConnect's routing capabilities allowed Republic to retire legacy WAN routers for further savings on infrastructure costs and management overhead.
Rapid Deployment Enables Fulfilling Compliance Demands
After deploying its SD-WAN to all banking centers in only about eight weeks, Republic's lean IT team quickly segmenting network traffic using EdgeConnect's business intent overlays.
Essentially, the overlays enable segregating and prioritizing data traffic according to business needs for application performance, security, and compliance.
Cutting digital rollouts from weeks to hours
Republic applied one overlay exclusively to debit card printing traffic, which is securely separated, end-to-end, from all other traffic using EdgeConnect's zone-based firewall capability. This eliminates the need to deploy a separate firewall at each banking center and fulfills PCI and Mastercard requirements.
"When we added the on-demand card printing service to a site, we could bring that up in hours with EdgeConnect and Orchestrator," says Hubbard. "That's compared to days, if not weeks, to manually deploy separate firewalls."
Orchestrator helps maximize app performance based on business needs
Two more Republic overlays serve other vital roles. One specifically handles ITM traffic, to ensure high-quality live video streaming and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Another manages business-critical traffic for Republic's FIS Horizon core banking system, Microsoft Exchange, and various types of file transfers.
For each of the overlays, the bank uses Orchestrator to quickly apply policies that ensure proper quality of service (QoS) levels to support business needs and maximize available bandwidth.
Further, the institution takes full advantage of additional SD-WAN capabilities in EdgeConnect such as path conditioning and dynamic path control, both of which improve application performance.
Faster Troubleshooting Improves Business Productivity
Republic also appreciates the increased visibility Orchestrator supplies, which exponentially speeds troubleshooting. With the ability to drill down to view granular traffic information, such as latency and bandwidth utilization, IT staff can quickly identify the source of an issue and focus resolution efforts appropriately.
"For example, if a branch reports its applications are underperforming, we see whether there's a network issue or something else, like a device problem," Hubbard says. "With the complete network insight and intelligence provided by Orchestrator, it's much faster to identify the root cause and resolve the problem."
Improving Experiences, Business Continuity, and Profitability
Yet another benefit results from decreasing the bank's dependence on expensive and inflexible MPLS circuits. Previously, Republic relied on a traditional MPLS circuit approach for its primary connectivity, with broadband links for backup.
This method incurs risk should the MPLS operator suffer a link failure or brownout, which are common in some geographic areas.
Using EdgeConnect, Republic now combines an MPLS circuit and a broadband link for primary connectivity. In some cases, the bank is using a combination of MPLS and fiber connections.
More reliable network and less risk
Additionally, EdgeConnect's intelligence capabilities extend to reliably and seamlessly switching between connections automatically, without impacting users, at sub-millisecond speeds. This replaces tedious and slow manual failover tasks.
Spreading connections across different telecommunications operators also improves business continuity and reduces risk, while automatic failovers make circuit-related downtime a thing of the past.
Experience improvements net user props
With both the MPLS and broadband connections active simultaneously, Republic has effectively increased available bandwidth from 20 Mbps to as much as 120 Mbps for many sites.
Overall, O'Mahoney reports the adoption of SD-WAN has provided significant business gains that result from the associated improvements in user experiences, both for employees and customers. This, in turn, adds to Republic's bottom line.
"Using EdgeConnect, we've seen a substantial improvement in performance," O'Mahoney says. "It was noticeable enough by our end users that they took the time to tell us about it."
Kundenprofil
Republic Bank & Trust Company operates over 40 banking centers and dozens of interactive teller machines (ITMs) in the U.S. states of Kentucky, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee. The bank has over $6B in assets and is a top institution on the Newsweek “America’s Best Banks” ranking.- Vertical: Financial Services
- Location: Louisville, Kentucky, United States
- Customer size: 42 retail banking centers in five states
Use Case
Support banking center innovation, including on-demand debit card printing and live video streaming, by modernizing branch connectivity to ensure reliable application performance, fulfill regulatory compliance requirements and reduce enterprise risk by adopting an automated, self-driving SD-WAN platform.
Requirements
- Provide high-quality video streaming for a growing network of ITMs
- Enable securely segregating data traffic to fulfill compliance requirements
- Automate deployment of compliance requirements and modernize connectivity
Outcomes
- Power on-demand and live streaming services while minimizing networking costs and reducing deployment times from weeks to hours
- Answer compliance requirements by automating and streamlining traffic segmentation using advanced, intuitive tool sets along with next-generation SD-WAN capabilities
- Boost productivity and profitability by delivering significantly improved employee and customer experiences
In a highly competitive financial services environment, Republic Bank sought to introduce new digital services, such as on-demand debit card printing. However, the plan demanded more than bank's legacy wide area network (WAN) could supply.
"To meet PCI [Payment Card Industry] and Mastercard requirements, debit card printing traffic must be completely isolated," explains Sean O'Mahoney, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Technology Services. "We could've rolled out a solution that included installing firewalls in every banking center, but that approach wouldn't scale well, would've been a management nightmare, and was cost-prohibitive."
Banking Centers Modernized with Aruba SD-WAN
Committed to its tradition of personalized customer service, Louisville Kentucky-headquartered Republic is a community bank operating 42 banking centers in five states. As a technology leader in its market, Republic relies on its WAN to connect all of its locations and support innovations such as video-driven interactive teller machines (ITMs).
When the institution began planning to layer on the on-demand debit card printing service, compliance with Payment Card Industry (PCI) regulations, and even more stringent security requirements from Mastercard, presented IT with a whole new set of challenges.
Republic's IT team decided it was time to transition away from its dependance on an aging, hardware-enabled WAN, using MPLS circuits, in favor of modernizing with a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN). Also critical: avoiding branch or ITM downtime due to periodic MPLS outages.
In collaboration with its trusted integration partner, SHI International, the bank evaluated solutions and selected Aruba EdgeConnect Enterprise, a self-driving SD-WAN platform by Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.
"Although the cost of deploying EdgeConnect was about the same as a WAN router upgrade, we acquired many more features and benefits with SD-WAN than we otherwise would have with a traditional WAN router model," O'Mahoney says.
Obtaining Intelligence Innovations and Boosting Security with SASE
With its new EdgeConnect SD-WAN Republic obtains multiple intelligence innovations while also streamlining administration by implementing Aruba Orchestrator for centralized SD-WAN management.
The platform also forms the foundation for a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture, which significantly improves protection for users and assets.
Immediate overhead elimination rewards
The bank's most immediate cost and overhead reduction rewards stemmed from leveraging software-enabled firewall and routing capabilities resident within EdgeConnect, rather than the traditional approach of deploying firewall and router hardware.
"If we had to put firewalls in every location, that would mean manual deployments and a lot more devices to configure and manage," says Eric Hubbard, Infrastructure Technology Manager. "Instead, we can create a firewall template in Orchestrator and deploy it in few clicks or taps. It's was as simple as that."
In addition, EdgeConnect's routing capabilities allowed Republic to retire legacy WAN routers for further savings on infrastructure costs and management overhead.
Rapid Deployment Enables Fulfilling Compliance Demands
After deploying its SD-WAN to all banking centers in only about eight weeks, Republic's lean IT team quickly segmenting network traffic using EdgeConnect's business intent overlays.
Essentially, the overlays enable segregating and prioritizing data traffic according to business needs for application performance, security, and compliance.
Cutting digital rollouts from weeks to hours
Republic applied one overlay exclusively to debit card printing traffic, which is securely separated, end-to-end, from all other traffic using EdgeConnect's zone-based firewall capability. This eliminates the need to deploy a separate firewall at each banking center and fulfills PCI and Mastercard requirements.
"When we added the on-demand card printing service to a site, we could bring that up in hours with EdgeConnect and Orchestrator," says Hubbard. "That's compared to days, if not weeks, to manually deploy separate firewalls."
Orchestrator helps maximize app performance based on business needs
Two more Republic overlays serve other vital roles. One specifically handles ITM traffic, to ensure high-quality live video streaming and deliver exceptional customer experiences. Another manages business-critical traffic for Republic's FIS Horizon core banking system, Microsoft Exchange, and various types of file transfers.
For each of the overlays, the bank uses Orchestrator to quickly apply policies that ensure proper quality of service (QoS) levels to support business needs and maximize available bandwidth.
Further, the institution takes full advantage of additional SD-WAN capabilities in EdgeConnect such as path conditioning and dynamic path control, both of which improve application performance.
Faster Troubleshooting Improves Business Productivity
Republic also appreciates the increased visibility Orchestrator supplies, which exponentially speeds troubleshooting. With the ability to drill down to view granular traffic information, such as latency and bandwidth utilization, IT staff can quickly identify the source of an issue and focus resolution efforts appropriately.
"For example, if a branch reports its applications are underperforming, we see whether there's a network issue or something else, like a device problem," Hubbard says. "With the complete network insight and intelligence provided by Orchestrator, it's much faster to identify the root cause and resolve the problem."
Improving Experiences, Business Continuity, and Profitability
Yet another benefit results from decreasing the bank's dependence on expensive and inflexible MPLS circuits. Previously, Republic relied on a traditional MPLS circuit approach for its primary connectivity, with broadband links for backup.
This method incurs risk should the MPLS operator suffer a link failure or brownout, which are common in some geographic areas.
Using EdgeConnect, Republic now combines an MPLS circuit and a broadband link for primary connectivity. In some cases, the bank is using a combination of MPLS and fiber connections.
More reliable network and less risk
Additionally, EdgeConnect's intelligence capabilities extend to reliably and seamlessly switching between connections automatically, without impacting users, at sub-millisecond speeds. This replaces tedious and slow manual failover tasks.
Spreading connections across different telecommunications operators also improves business continuity and reduces risk, while automatic failovers make circuit-related downtime a thing of the past.
Experience improvements net user props
With both the MPLS and broadband connections active simultaneously, Republic has effectively increased available bandwidth from 20 Mbps to as much as 120 Mbps for many sites.
Overall, O'Mahoney reports the adoption of SD-WAN has provided significant business gains that result from the associated improvements in user experiences, both for employees and customers. This, in turn, adds to Republic's bottom line.
"Using EdgeConnect, we've seen a substantial improvement in performance," O'Mahoney says. "It was noticeable enough by our end users that they took the time to tell us about it."