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By Mona R. Litt What does a bank do when it needs to design a network that is as reliable and secure as a bank vault? TexasBank in Weatherford, Texas, developed a voice and data network that lets customers make toll-free calls for account information, provides centralized banking services and enables employees to gain almost instantaneous access to any one of it s branches. "Our T3 to T1 fan-out WAN stretches across a geographical area the size of Rhode Island and carries intracompany voice traffic from the main office to the 15 branch es [north, west and south of Fort Worth]," says Joel Embry, executive vice president and chief technology officer for Choice Solutions, which designed the TexasBank network. According to Cindi Williamson, TexasBank's network administrator, industry-standard encryption and frequent security audits by the federal government ensure the best network security. The company's Web site (www.texasbank.com) operates on a different computer system so hackers cannot gain access to proprietary materials, she says. Some branches don't have mortgage and other departments, so TexasBank's network design provides all of the banking services without customers having to travel or call long distance to the headquarters. "The reason for developing our WAN sparked from wanting to keep our branches friendly with power of the main office b ehind it," Williamson explains. TexasBank's greatest challenge in operating the network lies with the coordination and integration of dissimilar components and service providers. "Being able to successfully implement hardware and software from multiple vendors and receive seamless service from providers remains challenging, but we continue to operate in a manageable manner," Embry says. With the recent acquisition of a number of Bank of America branches, TexasBank strives to provide the best possible services at every location, while keeping costs down and quality high. The bank processes 9,000 calls a week by using MICOM's V/IP system. Customers and employees not only receive sharp clarity with every telephone call, but they can easily access important data over V/IP phone/fax IP gateways to and from the main headquarters and local branch offices, according to Embry. Regency Voice Systems' OS/2-based interactive voice response (IVR) unit works with V/IP to offer customers updated account information toll free. Cisco Systems' 7507 routers send all IP, IPX and SNA traffic from the Weatherford office to all branches, and Cisco 2820 workgroup switches distribute IP and IPX traffic to data process ing and voice processing systems, Embry says. |
Updated June 6, 1997 |
