When you’re a global financial institution managing a complex, hybrid network — change isn’t easy. But clinging to manual processes and fragmented tooling is even harder.
That was the reality for one of the world’s largest banks. They were juggling thousands of devices, a mix of vendors, and a patchwork of scripts, playbooks, and tickets. Network changes were slow. Compliance was inconsistent. Visibility was limited. And the pressure to modernize was mounting.
The challenge wasn’t just technical — it was operational and strategic. They didn’t need another tool. They needed a platform to bring order to the chaos, accelerate day-to-day operations, and create a foundation for AI-driven automation down the road.
That’s where Itential came in.
Turning “Manual But It Works” Into Modern, Scalable Automation
The bank didn’t rip and replace. They didn’t throw away the tools and processes they already had. Instead, they connected them through Itential — and turned automation into something they could operationalize, scale, and control.
With Itential’s orchestration platform and on-prem execution capabilities, they were able to:
- Automate device updates, configuration changes, and compliance checks across hundreds of vendors — while retaining full visibility and control.
- Expose network automations to other teams and systems via APIs, making them easier to trigger from ITSM, CI/CD, or internal portals.
- Ensure that every change met security and compliance policy, without relying on tribal knowledge or manually enforcing standards.
- Move from ticket queues to self-service, allowing teams to safely trigger changes without waiting for a network engineer.
What had been a series of ad hoc scripts became a cohesive system. What was slow and inconsistent became scalable and resilient.
The Results: Faster Changes, Cleaner Compliance, and Real Operational ROI
<30 Seconds
To Fulfill Critical Segmentation Requests vs. 3 Hours
2 Weeks
To Upgrade Firewalls vs. 6 Weeks Manually
<5 Minutes
To Onboard F5 & Fortinet Devices vs. 6 Hours
After deploying Itential, the bank saw measurable improvements — fast:
- 80%+ reduction in time spent on repetitive network changes
- Dramatically fewer failed changes and rework
- Improved consistency and compliance with internal and regulatory standards
- Ability to onboard new network technologies without increasing operational overhead
They also improved audit readiness by embedding policy into every workflow and automatically tracking execution results. No more chasing down logs or hoping scripts had been run the same way twice.
Most importantly, they created a repeatable automation model that any team could follow. Instead of relying on a handful of automation experts, they could scale operational improvements across teams — even across global regions.
Building the Foundation for Future Networking
This wasn’t about deploying a tool. It was about shifting the way their network team worked — from reactive to proactive, from manual to orchestrated.
With Itential, the bank didn’t just speed up changes. They established a new operating model for network automation: one that works with the tools they already have, enables real control, and sets the foundation for continuous evolution.
Tags: Automation Strategy Financial Services Itential Automation Platform Network Automation Network Orchestration
Dan Sullivan
Head of Solutions Engineering ‐ Itential
Dan Sullivan is the Head of Solutions Engineering at Itential. He has spent his career focused on networking and distributed systems, holding roles within software development and architecture teams, professional services, and sales organizations. Over his career, he’s received numerous patents for his work on distributed systems and high availability routing/switching platforms. During the past 10+ years, Dan has been delivering and deploying automation solutions for the largest Service Provider and Enterprise customers across the world. At Itential, Dan works closely with customers to implement Itential’s automation solutions to drive both transformational business and technical outcomes.
