Q2 Case Study

Q2 Evolves the Network to Become Cloud Ready

Overview of Q2eBanking

Q2 is a leading provider of cloud-based digital banking solutions for banks and credit unions. Through tools and services, they help banks and credit unions engage with their account holders, save time and money, and enable them to develop new financial services applications. Q2 is on the forefront of innovation in the fintech industry, giving financial institutions and their account holders enhanced financial services experiences.

The Challenge

To deliver its digital banking application suite, Q2 deploys and manages a large network of on-premise devices to connect to hundreds of financial institutions (FIs). Because of the variety of IT environments,
policies and networking expertise at each location, these connections were typically one-off configurations that were difficult to manage at scale.

In addition to the management and administrative overhead of managing hundreds of individual connections, an upcoming end-of-life for their existing network hardware was expected to require
a replacement of all the devices.

Simultaneously, Q2 was engaged in an enterprise-wide effort to modernize its core applications by moving them to the cloud in order to deliver better performance, a better experience for their customers and enable modern application delivery.

Q2 needed a replacement networking solution to these legacy devices that not only met its technical and operational requirements, but also positioned them for growth with a modernized technology infrastructure that could enable them to move to the cloud and expand their offerings in the future.

As they began their search, network uptime, security and total cost of ownership remained extremely important to their decision making process. Deploying new connections across hundreds of locations was a major project risk.

The Solution

Q2 searched the market extensively for a networking solution that would connect their centralized applications to remote data sources in different customer environments. They wanted a single solution
that could be easily deployed across all of these environments, regardless of the presence of technical expertise onsite.

Q2 initially evaluated a simple replacement of networking hardware from their existing networking hardware provider. This solution was eventually dismissed due to its large CapEx cost and heavy operational expenses. This solution didn’t offer any improvement with the operational aspects of maintaining and supporting the large number of connections between their centralized applications and banks.

SD-WAN providers were also considered, but the implementation was not effective at managing third-party connections between different entities with different environments. SD-WAN also provided a
number of features, such as application identification, that the Q2 application connections did not need.

After extensive technical evaluation and comparison, Q2 chose Trustgrid due to its ease of deployment, centralized and simplified support capabilities, as well as its overall lower total cost of ownership when
compared to the alternatives.

As deployments began, FI customers were asked for basic network information and sent a Q2 branded hardware device that installed easily, requiring only power and an on-site network connection. The
process was made as turnkey as possible for both Q2 and their FI customers.

The Results

Q2’s deployment of Trustgrid to replace its legacy devices was a huge success. Financial institutions appreciated the simplicity of requirements and enhanced security, while Q2 was able to reduce its
deployment time from months to days and simplify the day to day support of all network connections.