According to a recent Gartner CFO survey, nearly a quarter of respondents said they will move at least 20% of their on-site employees to permanent remote positions.* This transformation will complicate an industry where going into an office has been the norm for decades. Further, some power users may require a higher degree of security.
Suddenly, IT teams at finance organizations have a brand new, complex challenge they need to solve. How do they keep remote users connected and productive while ensuring business continuity and security? IT leadership knows that endpoint protection and a simple VPN back to headquarters is not enough; what’s needed is a comprehensive, connected security strategy.
Finance organizations must keep their network secure, yet also require the flexibility to scale rapidly to support ever-changing traffic patterns and satisfy a constantly expanding remote workforce. They must be proactive in tackling these challenges quickly and efficiently to ensure business continuity.
By combining Mist Wi-Fi and Mist Edge with Juniper Connected Security, finance organizations can extend the AI-Driven Enterprise into employee homes to provide the necessary level of protection. By deploying Juniper Networks® security hardware and Mist Wi-Fi access points using zero-touch provisioning (ZTP), they can roll out managed networking equipment without requiring a visit from a technician. Juniper’s cloud-based management solution provides the scalability to meet the needs of even the largest deployments.
Juniper and Mist empower finance IT teams to be proactive and able to tackle challenges quickly and easily:
- Gain AI-driven insights into user experiences at home and remote offices
- Simplify deployments with zero-touch provisioning
- Eliminate overlay VPN technologies while extending the enterprise network into employees’ homes
- Easily monitor business Wi-Fi and keep corporate traffic safe
- Increase security while keeping personal and business traffic separate on the home network
- Keep threats in check with advanced security services
- Cultivate a dynamic and flexible network that can adapt as needs change
Recently, a Juniper customer in the finance industry came to us with a problem: they needed to support their stock traders who suddenly needed to start working from home. Their main requirement was that their staff is required to use an external device, called a trading turret, which is a specialized telephony key system device that requires an ethernet connection and cannot run a VPN client. The trading turret is essential for stock traders to conduct business as well as having their PC connected to the customer’s network. They needed to deploy a tactical solution that solved these complexities rapidly and it needed to be plug-and-play capable for their non-technical staff.
Juniper suggested having an SRX300 at each remote location and addressing the head-end capacity for small packets. We recommended using three pairs of SRX4600s in their International Headquarter locations based on estimated traffic. To work at scale and to consider the customers’ requirements, cloud management was selected to provide a basic management solution that offers simple ZTP from the cloud.
From a trader’s perspective, they received a box with the turret, the SRX and the necessary cabling, which was color-coded for ease of installation. They then followed setup instructions (red cable here, blue cable here, etc.) that initiated the ZTP process and the traders were up and running. Within two weeks of their order, they were able to install approximately 500 traders and we continue to bring on more, providing a great example of rapidly deployable business continuity combined with class-leading security.
Juniper has expertise in the enterprise. Typically, IT departments at financial institutions do not control firmware updates or any of the QoS elements in the networking and security equipment found in most homes. This should not have to mean they rely on traditional Wi-Fi hardware out of necessity. Finance organizations need reliable, secure, easy-to-deploy solutions that they can depend on.
These organizations have customers with staff who work in sensitive situations—in roles where user experience and security matter. This is where Juniper solutions for connectivity and security can help.
*Gartner Press Release,
Gartner CFO Survey Reveals 74% Intend to Shift Some Employees to Remote Work Permanently, April 3, 2020, https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-04-03-gartner-cfo-surey-reveals-74-percent-of-organizations-to-shift-some-employees-to-remote-work-permanently2
