Mist AI simplifies network conversion during Seacoast Bank acquisition

When Seacoast acquired Professional Bank in January 2023, it needed a simple, expedient solution to replace the networks at the acquired bank’s branches throughout Miami and ensure that they complied with Seacoast’s governance, risk, and compliance policies.

“We don’t integrate the acquired bank’s network,” says Stuart Thacker, VP of IT engineering for Seacoast Bank. “We install a fresh Seacoast network at the headquarters and all the branches—the works.”

In addition, Seacoast wanted secure Wi-Fi services for employees and contractors that eliminated the need for a VPN and shared passwords, which made network access difficult to control.

As the Seacoast team prepared to cut over the acquired bank, they used the Juniper Mist portal to establish the client service levels experience metrics and set up the configuration templates. With the portal’s intuitive interface, no CLI was needed.

The new switches and access points were shipped to each branch and quickly installed by technicians, who used the included Juniper Mist mobile app to scan a QR code to activate each AP and get the switches live. Using the Marvis Virtual Network Assistant, the team quickly identified and resolved an error during the conversion—a network loop that was inadvertently created—and quickly fixed the disruption.

Deploying the Juniper network was so streamlined that Seacoast converted seven Professional Bank branch locations over a single weekend. Thacker plans to duplicate the process for future acquisitions.

“We started looking for a new network vendor 60 days ago, and we already have one successful bank conversion under our belt,” he says.