Case Study

How a Global Bank’s Network Team Saved 1,500 Hours Per Upgrade Cycle with Itential

From scripts on engineer laptops to a governed enterprise orchestration pattern across hybrid infrastructure – with 120+ users onboarded, 5,000+ workflows executed, and a 90% drop in manual-error incidents.

Challenge

Automation existed – on individual engineers’ laptops, in scattered scripts, with no enterprise pattern. The network became a bottleneck for the bank’s new-service and feature-velocity strategy.

Solution

Itential centralized and standardized ad-hoc scripts across multi-vendor infrastructure, coordinating cloud and non-cloud automation in the same platform – with low-code, ServiceNow integration, and self-service exposed to internal teams.

Impact

1,500 hours saved per F5 upgrade cycle. 3,000 hours saved annually on device OS upgrades. 5,000+ workflows in year one. 120+ users onboarded. 90% drop in manual-error incidents.

The Challenge

When Automation Lives on Laptops, the Network Becomes the Bottleneck

For network teams at this global bank, automation began the way it often does – ad-hoc, individual-driven, across different teams using scripts to tackle whatever was in front of them. One or two people per team might write a script and execute it from their own laptop. There was no enterprise pattern, no standardized methodology, no shared scaffolding. The result was a series of inefficiencies and operational risks the team kept running into without a clear way out.

That made the network a bottleneck for innovation. The bank’s strategy is firmly committed to offering new services, iterating on products, and shipping new features to attract and retain customers in a fast-moving industry. As coordination across hybrid infrastructure became more important, the legacy way of managing the network just couldn’t stand up. The team needed an enterprise automation pattern – not more laptop scripts.

The bank didn’t need another script library. They needed a centralized platform that could standardize ad-hoc automation, scale across multi-vendor infrastructure, coordinate cloud and non-cloud as one environment, and welcome non-coders into the automation program. Itential was the answer.

We had a series of teams that had maybe a person or two that could automate. They write something on their laptop, store it on their laptop, execute it from their laptop. There’s no real enterprise pattern. That’s one of the reasons we’re pushing so hard internally with Itential – it allows us to do automation for our network community on our enterprise pattern.

Senior Manager, Network Automation DevOps

Global Bank

Why Itential

Why the Bank Chose Itential

The bank needed a platform that could centralize and standardize ad-hoc scripts across multi-vendor infrastructure, coordinate cloud and non-cloud as one environment, and welcome non-coders into the automation program. The seven criteria that mattered came together in Itential.

An Enterprise Pattern, Not More Laptop Scripts

Centralizing scattered automation across multi-vendor, multi-domain, hybrid infrastructure requires more than another script library. The bank chose Itential for seven capabilities that turned isolated efforts into a shared enterprise automation program.

Centralized Platform for Network & IT

A single platform to build, operate, and maintain workflows across every network and IT domain – ending the laptop-script pattern at the architectural level. The scattered automation efforts became one shared, governed program with detailed logs and change controls applied uniformly.

Hybrid Cloud & Non-Cloud Coordination

Cloud and non-cloud devices coordinate as one environment. The bank’s domain primarily deals with non-cloud devices, but vendors are containerizing and moving to SaaS – and Itential handles the hybrid space without requiring separate orchestration stacks for each side of the line.

Reuse Existing Python & Ansible Investments

Existing Python and Ansible automations written by individual team members become callable building blocks – not liabilities to retire. Itential orchestrates across what the team already has, preserving the work that came before instead of forcing rip-and-replace.

Low-Code Workflow Builder

Drag-and-drop workflow building abstracts network complexity. Non-coders within infrastructure teams become contributors – expanding the bench of builders from “one or two people per team” to 120+ trained users across the organization.

Out-of-the-Box Integrations Across the Stack

Open source integrations with ServiceNow, F5, and other critical systems eliminate the integration tax. Out-of-the-box API generation accelerates the rest – less custom development per integration, faster time to value across the full multi-vendor stack.

Self-Service Network Services

Network services exposed as self-serve products for internal teams – reducing operational overhead and empowering end users. Routine work doesn’t escalate, and the core network team focuses on the higher-value initiatives the bank’s strategy depends on.

Scalable Governance Across Domains & Sites

Itential scales with the network estate – extending automation and orchestration across all domains and sites while maintaining detailed logs, change controls, and the audit trail regulatory environments require. Growing the program doesn’t mean compromising the governance.

Our domain primarily deals with non-cloud devices, but vendors are moving to SaaS or containers. There’s always going to be coordination between cloud and non-cloud, that hybrid space, and Itential plays a huge, huge role in that.

Senior Manager, Network Automation DevOps

Global Bank

The Solution

From Regional Isolation to an Enterprise Automation Program

The first major use case was a non-cloud regional isolation – storing logs, shutting down one data center, and verifying the other picked up required traffic. That project showed the team how far Itential could take them. Now they’re building hundreds of workflows across regional isolation, password rotation, auto-triage, configuration management, OS upgrades, load balancer management, and inventory discovery.

Non-Cloud Regional Isolation

Automated workflows shut down one data center and verify the other picks up required traffic – storing logs and integrating across each device and service vendor in the process. The use case that proved the platform’s range and turned a complex manual exercise into governed orchestration.

F5 Upgrade Cycles in Minutes

F5 load balancer upgrade cycles compressed from six months of manual work to minutes – executable at any time, with pre/post-check validation and rollback built in. The single biggest time saver: 1,500 hours back per upgrade cycle, freed for higher-value work.

Auto-Triage & Event-Triggered Remediation

Event-triggered remediation handles common incidents automatically and routes the rest with diagnostic context – catching issues earlier, reducing manual triage volume, and letting engineers focus on the problems that actually need their judgment.

Configuration & Compliance Automation

Configuration consistency checks, automated password rotations, and remediation workflows run as governed sequences with full audit trails – the regulatory evidence environment captured automatically as work happens.

Python & Ansible Reuse

Existing Python and Ansible automations become reusable, callable building blocks within Itential workflows – turning scattered laptop scripts into governed enterprise assets while preserving the work already done.

Broad Builder Adoption

120+ users onboarded across the organization – from network specialists to non-coders within infrastructure teams. Automation participation expanded from a handful of individuals to a shared capability across domains.

The Outcome

A Scalable, Future-Forward Automation Program

Measurable gains across the metrics that matter – time saved, errors reduced, builders empowered, and a governed enterprise pattern the bank can scale across the network and IT estate.

1,500

Hours Saved Per F5 Upgrade

Time savings per F5 upgrade cycle – with the work compressed from six months to minutes, executable anytime.

3,000

Hours Saved on OS Upgrades

Annual time savings on device OS upgrades across the network estate.

5,000+

Workflows Executed Year One

Network processes executed as orchestrated workflows in the first year of production.

120+

Trained Users Across Teams

Users trained and onboarded to the Itential Platform across the organization – the new bench of builders.

90%

Fewer Manual-Error Incidents

Reduction in incidents caused by manual errors across network and infrastructure processes.

From Isolated Scripts to a Structured Enterprise Program

Standardized workflows, integrated automation and orchestration in day-to-day operations, measurable improvements in efficiency, compliance, and operational reliability. The foundation for a network automation strategy that scales with the bank’s growth.

What’s Next

Looking ahead, the bank is scaling automation strategically: developing reusable automation modules so they don’t have 15 versions of the same thing, enhancing role-based access control to strengthen compliance and governance, and expanding automation within secure network zones. With automation firmly embedded in operations, they’re poised to take the program to the next level – leveraging Itential to drive innovation, compliance, and efficiency at scale.

Standards and best practices: that’s one of the focuses we’re doing next year. That’s where reusable modules come in, so we don’t have 15 versions of the same thing. We want to make building automation a more formal process.

Senior Manager, Network Automation DevOps

Global Bank

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