A credit union in Alabama had ambitions to open more locations in rural areas and upgrade its branches with reliable internet so customers could use tablets to start loan applications or communicate over video with staffers in other branches.
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Alabama One is not unique among financial institutions in this transition. Banks have generally lagged behind other industries in moving away from MPLS, said Andrew Taylor, a senior architect in West Monroe’s technology practice. A push for SD-WAN came about five years ago, with a lot more adoption in the last year or two, he said. SD-WAN vendors have increasingly bundled their services together to make installation easier.
“Financial institutions have it on their road maps,” he said.
There are pros and cons to each choice. MPLS networks, for example, are known to be stable and low maintenance, according to Ruby Walia, senior advisor for digital banking at the digital consultancy Mobiquity. But MPLS networks are generally more expensive and less flexible than SD-WAN, because users are tied to one telecom provider. SD-WAN is quicker to install and comes with tools that make operational maintenance easier.
Alabama One’s experience demonstrates the value of making such a change, especially within a small institution.
“These kinds of infrastructure projects often get deferred in smaller organizations,” said Walia.
Bobby Umfress II, director of IT infrastructure and operations at the $938 million-asset Alabama One, joined in July 2018. Two years before, Alabama One had done a proof of concept with SD-WAN but held off on investing in what was new technology at the time. Leaders at the credit union wanted to give the product time to mature.
In 2019, they were ready to pull the trigger. Alabama One started rolling out SD-WAN in early 2020 and wrapped up in the summer. The company turned to Aruba, a networking solutions company under Hewlett Packard Enterprise, to provide SD-WAN, wireless and wired networks. Alabama One chose Aruba over competitors such as Cisco because it had positive experiences with Aruba in the past and the cost of maintenance and support contracts over time were lower.
Umfress points out that the bank’s MPLS network tied the credit union to one telecom provider, which made service expensive even if it was good. SD-WAN allows for any type of internet connection, including fiber, cable and cellular, at corporate and branch sites and in data center colocation facilities. This leaves room to change providers at different branches or sites and renegotiate contracts.
“If we want to spin up branches quickly and not be tied down to a provider for bandwidth, we are more in control over our destiny with SD-WAN,” said Umfress.
This ability is important because Alabama One has opened six new branches since it finished deploying SD-WAN. Around Labor Day weekend in 2021, Alabama One took over a branch that another financial institution was vacating. It started installing equipment on Thursday and was up and running the following Tuesday. Umfress said that with MPLS, the credit union would have needed at least three months to order and install circuits. The five-day turnaround was the credit union’s fastest ever for a branch acquisition.
“New nodes on the network can be quickly added to the corporate network, if some kind of connectivity already exists between that branch and the internet,” said Walia. “This benefit is typical of SD-WAN.”
Umfress estimates that the amount Alabama One paid for MPLS connectivity was more than what it is paying for its new SD-WAN setup, including the six new sites.
Walia estimates that SD-WAN networks can be one-third the cost of MPLS networks.
Umfress also has his eye on upgrades to Alabama One locations that SD-WAN connectivity will support.
For example, the credit union wants to have tablets on hand for customers to begin loan applications or new member applications, perhaps while waiting in line or concurrently with a teller who is not tied to a workstation. It is also planning private kiosks where customers could interact over video with a loan officer at another branch if one was not available at their location, as well as video-enabled ATMs.
"Having the uptime and reliability of services is a big thing,” said Umfress. “The last thing you want is to advertise these services and then the Wi-Fi not work or the bandwidth not be there.”
Reliability is important as Alabama One expands into rural regions across Alabama, rather than sticking to the western side of the state where it is concentrated now.
“In the rural markets we serve, sometimes the cell service isn’t the best,” said Umfress.
