Modernizing a 30-Branch Credit Union Network Without Disrupting Operations

800 employees, 30 branch locations British Columbia, Canada Fixed-term infrastructure project

A BC-based credit union with 30 branches and 800 employees was suffering from legacy network bottlenecks. BALANCED+ replaced end-of-life infrastructure with a centrally managed Fortinet stack, on time and under budget.

This British Columbia-based credit union provides banking and insurance services across a network of 30 branch locations, supported by a head office, 800 employees, and two data centres. As a member-owned financial institution, operational reliability and cost efficiency are foundational priorities, any disruption to branch connectivity directly impacts the members and staff they serve.

With a distributed footprint of this size, network infrastructure is mission-critical. The organization needed a modernization partner who understood both the technical complexity and the zero-tolerance threshold for service disruption in a regulated financial environment.

The credit union’s existing network was built on a classic MPLS architecture that routed all internet traffic back through the central data centre, a design that made sense when it was built but had become a significant liability as bandwidth demands grew. Legacy ethernet switch stacks from multiple vendors, partitioned into VLANs at each branch, were aging out of support and increasingly difficult to manage in a standardized way.

The result was predictable: bandwidth bottlenecks at the data centre, rising MPLS circuit costs, inconsistent security postures across branches, and an operations team burdened by the complexity of managing disparate, end-of-life equipment across 30 locations, all without a single pane of glass to work from.

Legacy MPLS architecture centralized all internet traffic through the data centre, creating chronic bandwidth bottlenecks.
End-of-life switching equipment from multiple vendors created inconsistent configurations and management overhead across 30 branches.
No centralized management platform meant network changes required branch-by-branch manual intervention.
Aging branch infrastructure lacked modern NGFW security capabilities, leaving the WAN edge underprotected.
Costly MPLS circuit upgrades were imminent if internet traffic offloading wasn't addressed.

BALANCED+ engineers and project managers worked directly alongside the credit union’s internal networking team throughout every phase, from architecture and design through configuration, rollout planning, and on-site installation support. Business requirements were formally documented upfront and used as the foundation for both high-level and low-level design, ensuring the solution was built to the organization’s actual operational needs rather than a generic template.

The selected architecture replaced legacy branch switches with a standardized Fortinet switch stack, managed centrally through FortiManager. Local FortiGate appliances were deployed at each branch as both switch controllers and NGFW firewalls, enabling local internet breakout, improved security posture, and a clear path to SD-WAN capability, all within a unified management framework.

Requirements & Network Design

Documented business and technical requirements, then developed high and low-level network designs that addressed switching, security, and internet traffic routing across all 30 branch locations.

Fortinet Stack Selection & Architecture

Selected Fortinet as the standardized platform based on its integrated security fabric, built-in SD-WAN capability, and FortiManager's centralized management, replacing a fragmented multi-vendor environment.

Branch Switch Replacement

Removed legacy end-of-life switches at each branch and installed standardized Fortinet switch stacks with local FortiGate controllers, maintaining service continuity throughout the rollout.

Local Internet Breakout Deployment

Established local broadband fiber connections at branches and configured FortiGate appliances as NGFW branch firewalls, offloading non-critical internet traffic from the MPLS network.

Centralized Management Integration

Integrated all branch infrastructure into FortiManager, providing the operations team with a single pane of glass for policy management, monitoring, and future SD-WAN enablement.

The project was delivered on time and under budget, with zero service disruptions across the 30-branch rollout. The credit union emerged with a modernized, centrally managed network that addressed every layer of the original problem: bandwidth bottlenecks eliminated through local internet breakout, MPLS costs reduced by offloading non-line-of-business traffic, branch security posture strengthened with NGFW at every location, and operational complexity dramatically reduced through unified FortiManager visibility.

The new infrastructure also positions the organization for future capability expansion, the same FortiGate appliances deployed for this project are licensed and ready to enable SD-WAN when the credit union is ready to take that next step.

Legacy equipment and architecture were causing bandwidth bottlenecks. We turned to BALANCED+ for help.

Executive Manager, British Columbia Credit Union