Bank Holding Company Improves Network Management Ahead of Schedule
Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CUSTOMER TYPE: Bank Holding Company
INDUSTRY: Finance
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
- Increase network availability
- Increase network capacity
- Standardize platform across hundreds of sites
- Build in capacity for future business initiatives
- Prepare for next-generation business drivers
SOLUTION
- LiveNX single-pane-of-glass network performance management from LiveAction
BUSINESS RESULTS
- Achieved all objectives while cutting operational network costs by two-thirds
- Extended initial 125-site rollout to 825 sites
- Simplified network configuration and management
CHALLENGE
This 150-year-old American bank holding company with $100 billion in assets has a network of 1,100 branches and 2,000 ATM locations. While the WAN solution wasn’t 150 years old, sometimes to the network team and end users it felt like it could be. It was based on a single T-1 connection running a full mesh topology between two data centers over one router. The software and hardware were nearing end-of-support lifecycle status, and it was all the operational staff could do just to keep their noses above water focused on day-to-day support.
The organization needed additional network capacity to support the centrally-processed, high-bandwidth, web-based teller platform, a paperless initiative to centralize documentation, HD video and security. The centralized wireless network suffered from the trombone effect of running branch-office internet traffic through the data center and back, adding significant latency that affected transaction response times.
The network team selected Cisco’s Intelligent WAN, which met all their requirements, allowing them to increase availability and capacity on a standardized platform and achieve their initiatives regarding converged wireless, BYOD guest access and network security segmentation, while cutting operational costs by two-thirds.
However, the proof-of-concept phase revealed the need for advanced tools beyond the traditional command-line interface (CLI) to configure, manage, and troubleshoot the system. They selected LiveNX from LiveAction for its ease-of-use and real-time visualization capabilities.
SOLUTION
The single-pane-of-glass functionality provided by LiveNX gives a network team in-depth visibility into the performance and operational health of the infrastructure solution and the ability to drill down to view application performance and traffic flows at the port or flow level with a few clicks.
The operational simplicity afforded by the LiveNX interface enhances Tier-1 and Tier-2 support and enables graphical Tier-1 and Tier-2 troubleshooting of performance and stability issues across the IWAN solution.
RESULTS
Because of the improved visibility made possible by LiveNX, the company extended the initial 125-site rollout to 825 sites in half the originally proposed schedule.
The ability to replay events after the fact was a WAN-management game-changer, immediately revealing voice performance issues during deployment, a problem that would have taken hours or days using CLI.
The real-time view of Active Directory performance uncovered drops that caused extended ERP login times affecting productivity, indicating the need to update QoS policies. Fortunately, the intelligent and customizable GUI-based QoS configuration supported by LiveNX allowed the network operation center engineers to quickly troubleshoot and modify profiles and propagate them across hundreds of sites instantly.
“LiveNX was key for providing visibility in the WAN while deploying and managing Cisco Intelligent WAN.”
– VP of Network Infrastructure for a Bank Holding Company
About LiveAction®
LiveAction provides end-to-end visibility of network and application performance from a single pane of glass. We provide enterprises with confidence that the network is meeting business objectives, full network visibility for better decisions, and reduced cost to operate the network.
