WaMu banks on MPLS

2003 User Excellence Award winner Washington Mutual powers up for rapid expansion with a massive Multi-protocol Label Switching network.

Bankers as a group tend to be risk-averse. So in June 2002 as Washington Mutual moved toward finalizing contracts for a huge Multi-protocol Label Switching-based network, CIO Jerry Gross was getting nervous.

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Bankers as a group tend to be risk-averse. So in June 2002 as Washington Mutual moved toward finalizing contracts for a huge Multi-protocol Label Switching-based network, CIO Jerry Gross was getting nervous.

The nation's seventh-largest bank was poised to commit millions to the project, a gamble of sorts on a technology used more by big carriers than corporations. In fact, WaMu wanted MPLS for the same reasons a Tier 1 ISP does - it scales readily; segments easily, with connections and teardowns handled automatically; and handily accommodates big surges in demand, says Nabil Badr, the company's resident protocol genius, who architected the network.

Confident as Gross might have been about his backbone choice, he was worried about the stability and viability of the primary carrier with whom he was negotiating - MCI, then known as WorldCom. With word on the street putting MCI in deeper financial trouble than its executives were letting on, Gross flew to the carrier's New York headquarters for assurances. Over dinner, then-CFO Scott Sullivan convinced Gross that the rumors surrounding the carrier were baseless and that everything would be fine.

So Gross was probably more shocked then most when, less than a week later while watching CNBC in his Seattle office, he saw law enforcement officials leading Sullivan away in handcuffs. "I've been involved in some white-knucklers in all my years in business, but this one took the cake," Gross says. It didn't help that soon after WaMu Chairman Kerry Killinger stopped by Gross' office to ask, "How you feeling this week?"

With MCI in such dire straits, Gross needed to get even more pragmatic and contingency-minded than he had been regarding this massive network overhaul. Gross and his network staff still believed that the carrier was the best in the business to provide MPLS. ISP UUNET, acquired by MCI, pioneered the technology in the 1990s. It uses MPLS to run its own massive IP backbone, which comprises much of the public Internet.

So rather than ditch MCI in favor of AT&T or another carrier as the primary service provider, WaMu structured its MPLS contracts assuming MCI would go broke and cease operations. That is, it spelled out terms for shunting all WaMu traffic on MCI's backbone to back-up carrier AT&T. The MCI and AT&T contracts also contain such unique terms and conditions as the ability to change the mix of services without penalty at any time, Gross says.

The User Excellence Award, in its 19th year, honors user organizations that demonstrate exceptional use of network technology to empower the enterprise. Winning projects show how mainstream technologies can be applied creatively or how newer infrastructure technologies can solve pressing business problems. They create great business cases, showing how technology leads to big savings, new opportunities or demonstrable productivity gains.

The financial services company had plenty of incentive to get this MPLS project right and minimize risk. WaMu's business spans consumer banking, mortgage lending and insurance in the U.S., with assets totaling more than $286 billion. The MPLS network, connecting 3,000 locations and the 60,000 people who work at them, would help fuel unprecedented business opportunities. WaMu, for example, relied on the MPLS network in opening 32 bank branches in Chicago in one day in August - a figure of which the company is justifiably proud.