Known as Canada’s Challenger Bank™, Equitable Bank prides itself on being ahead of consumer demand for digital transformation within the financial services sector. Thanks to the bank’s innovative technology approach and its beloved digital platform, EQ Bank, customers can engage mainly through online channels with no physical brick-and-mortar presence. This not only enables Equitable Bank’s staff to provide more streamlined service, but digital banking frequently provides customers with a superior financial offering. However, this reliance on technology makes performance and connectivity even more crucial to the bank’s daily operations.
Like many businesses, Equitable Bank shifted to a work-from-home structure during the COVID-19 pandemic and required a refresh of its existing VPN hardware to better meet new capacity demands.
“We had initially deployed a set of terminal servers that continuously expanded in response to growing usage. As time went on, the team found the amount of maintenance and management unsustainable,” said Vince Palmacci, IT Architect, Equitable Bank. “We knew we needed a better solution that could scale with us and ensure uninterrupted support for our employees.”
From VPN to AVD
Equitable Bank worked with its managed service provider (MSP) and Microsoft to find a suitable VPN alternative and was subsequently introduced to Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). Microsoft AVD is a cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution that allows users to access virtualized Windows desktops and applications from anywhere, using a variety of devices such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
The bank then decided to support the environment with a management and optimization platform, Nerdio Manager for Enterprise.
Equitable Bank’s proof of concept (POC) was first carried out with a department that immediately needed remote access to vital business applications on the network. Nerdio’s Auto-scaling and automation enabled IT to turn virtual machine schedules on and off as usage and demand fluctuated. This led to 74% savings on compute per month compared to the previous environment.
IT bolsters business continuity and growth
Following the full deployment after POC, Equitable Bank now manages approximately 1,900 end users with Nerdio, seamlessly connecting employees across Canada with a cloud-based solution.
“Today, we are able to accelerate our IT initiatives, reduce complexity, optimize costs, strengthen security, and support remote work,” Palmacci said. “Our technology infrastructure now better aligns with our business goals as we continue to grow and improve our employee experience.”
IT is able to scale resources up and down to meet demand while still reducing overall energy usage. Palmacci and his team have a comprehensive understanding of Azure consumption week by week, so they’re able to improve overall performance by assigning the right amount of compute to the right users. At scale across the organization, this has resulted in major cost savings.
To learn more about how Canada’s largest non-traditional bank accelerated IT initiatives while strengthening its security posture, reducing complexity, and better supporting remote work, download the full case study PDF below.
