Riding a tension-free, resilient, flexible network

For the joint-venture insurance company, establishing centralized and secure connectivity for branches was a challenge. The solution it adopted was software-defined wide area network

- SHUBHENDU PARTH

Set up in 2008 as a joint venture by Canara Bank, HSBC Insurance (Asia Pacific) Holdings Limited and Oriental Bank of Commerce (now merged with Punjab National Bank), the Gurugram-based Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance has over 40 branch offices across India.

While planning for expansion—new, smaller branches—it became evident that the traditional setup could prove a challenge in terms of management and control, particularly since the organization intended to establish central and secure connectivity using the available low-cost public network with an enterprise-level security component.

“This was also well-timed for us as we were also planning to do away with the old network infrastructure and wanted to leapfrog to adopt the latest in networking technology,” Sachin Dutta, Chief Operating Officer of Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance said.

With their rigor to drive quicker delivery of secure, scalable, stable network environment at new locations, the company planned to migrate to the next-generation network by implementing SD-WAN and SD-LAN in the working environment.

“As we embarked on our journey to refresh the old network devices, we evaluated the market, measured business growth plans and consulted various partners in this space. We reviewed the challenges of setting these branches in a traditional way and found that the cost incurred and time required on setting up these branches was very high,” he explained.