Diamond Credit Union (DCU) is a Pennsylvania state-chartered and federally-insured credit union. They offer low-cost financial services with could class expertise since 1947. As a not-for-profit financial cooperative, Diamond Credit Union is owned an operated by its members. With nearly 1 billion in assets managed and over 60,000 members, Diamond is one of the area’s largest member-owned credit unions.
- Industry: Banking
- Location: Pottstown, PA
- Size: 60,000
Challenges
- Highly-Available Network Infrastructure
- Scalable to Support Future Growth
- Operational Consistency Across All Sites with Enhanced User Experience
- Security
Products Utilized
- ExtremeSwitching – X690-48T
- ExtremeSwitching – X690-48X
- ExtremeManagement ExtremeControl
- ExtremeAnalytics
Challenge
To support its continued growth, DCU needed to upgrade its network infrastructure; as such, scalability was a key driver. With new branches coming online and being opened on a yearly basis, the IT department needed to be able to support the wired and wireless needs of current employees and customers but also allow for future growth. With the increasing levels of investment and traffic, it was clear to the bank that it needed to prepare for considerable growth.
Furthermore, the Bank required a highly available network that would provide both its employees and customers with a consistent and high-quality user experience throughout its many locations. High network availability was also determined to be mission-critical in enabling the bank to carry out its operations in an efficient and effective way. Additionally, ensuring that the network was equipped with the appropriate level of security and that it could be easily and carefully managed by IT was of the utmost importance.
Approach
The Team at MTP (MTP), met the team at Diamond Credit Union (DCU). We provided a no charge assessment of their current network infrastructure, then helped devise a solution with long term growth in mind.
We showed Diamond’s IT team the capabilities of Extreme Networks, how it compared in both functionality and extensibility with other vendors on the market. We provided a true ROI review document that showed tremendous cost savings over the competition, with more standard features included.
The Morris Technology team provided Diamond Credit Union with a full and easy to understand solution with no hidden maintenance or support costs and a streamlined process, from start to finish.
“One of the biggest benefits is our long-standing relationship with MTP and the fact that Extreme Networks is their trusted business partner. They took care of the design, and deployment of the solution and spent the time to show us just how easy it is to manage the new Extreme Networks infrastructure. They brought us a product and service that ensures continuous optimization, increased efficiency, reduces risk and ensures the highest quality standards for DCU.”
– K. Sauer, IT Operations – Diamond Credit Union
Solution
With these criteria in mind, MTP brought in Extreme to work with DCU and deliver a bespoke solution that leveraged a number of its core products and industry expertise.
In order to provide a resilient scalable network, Extreme brought together its high-performance Gigabit Ethernet as well as ExtremeManagement (PurView) PurView. Purview is a Network-Powered Application Analytics and Optimization solution that captures and analyzes context-based application traffic to deliver meaningful intelligence – about applications, users, locations, and devices.
With ExtremeManagement, network access control across all sites was consolidated to a single pane of glass, providing simplicity and automation across multiple applications, resulting in a high-quality user experience and increased operational efficiency.
A centralized platform also allowed Extreme to deploy ExtremeControl so that DCU could manage access per device. The deployment allows personalized access to network services and applications by profiles. Once a profile is set up, staff can be authenticated and enjoy the same experience, regardless of which site they are on.
In order to further ensure the security and performance of the network, ExtremeAnalytics was deployed to provide application-level visibility and application performance monitoring across the physical and virtual network for business intelligence and rapid problem resolution.
Results
Extreme Networks’ software-driven solutions ensure the provision of highly available network access to applications and resources for all of DCU’s users and devices. Extreme Management has, via its advanced levels of automation alongside visibility, helped reduce operational time and costs. The ease at with which the DCU IT team can manage the network through a single pane of glass has meant that, despite the fact that the bank’s physical footprint and the number of devices on the network have grown threefold, it has managed to keep the number of IT staff at the same level. Security has been further improved across both the wired and wireless infrastructure by giving a full view into every single port in use on the network, no matter who or what is plugged in, and no matter the location.
Extreme provides the visibility into DCU’s entire network, ensuring that threats are identified early and immediate action is taken. Furthermore, the solution has also enabled the bank to scale its network to meet the increased demands placed on it by a plethora of new connected IoT devices including cameras, coffee machines, and entrance sensors in a secure and efficient physical campus infrastructure. An added benefit of working with Morris Technology and Extreme Networks is that we manage the whole process from design to deployment directly. Our staff is on-site for day-to-day support during the initial deployment and the DCU team always has direct access to both Morris Technology and Extreme Network’s senior personnel for any ongoing questions. This close working relationship has allowed DCU to leverage the latest technology and benefits of a best-in-class network built and managed to its unique needs.