Lucy Switchgear avoids costly bandwidth upgrades with WAN optimization solution: Improved file download speeds by up to 90 percent
Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq: RVBD), the IT infrastructure performance company for networks, applications and storage, recently announced that global electrical components company Lucy Switchgear has deployed Riverbed® Steelhead® appliances across its organization. Following deployment, Lucy Switchgear bandwidth requirements have dropped by 50 percent, and as a result the company avoided a costly upgrade to its wide area network. In addition, employee productivity and global collaboration at Lucy Switchgear have improved as file download times have dropped from several minutes to as little as seconds. According to Lucy Switchgear, Riverbed is now an essential part of its IT infrastructure.
Lucy Switchgear, a manufacturer of medium and low voltage electrical switchgear, has over 100 years experience in the power distribution industry. Its solutions facilitate the delivery of electricity to homes and businesses worldwide. It has four offices in the UK and one in Dubai and the company has established a global network operation in over 50 countries through industrial partners and contractors, as well as joint ventures in Saudi Arabia and India.
Chris Ireland, global network manager for Lucy Switchgear, explained: "We were seeing an increase in the use of CAD, Outlook and video conferencing applications, which was slowly using up all of our available bandwidth. In addition, users working remotely would regularly complain of delays in accessing files. In some cases, it could take up to 90 minutes to log on and download very large CAD files, affecting worker productivity and performance."
Working with its technology reseller Foundation IT, Lucy Switchgear tested WAN optimization solutions from Riverbed as well as alternatives. It quickly became clear that Riverbed outperformed the competitors and could handle the company's CAD file requirements.
Ireland said, "We regarded the Riverbed solution so highly that we opted to go with them despite being offered a cheaper alternative by another vendor. In addition, the Riverbed deployment was straightforward. It was one of the easiest projects I've overseen for the WAN."
An increase in bandwidth capacity would have meant a significant increase to Lucy Switchgear's existing budget. Instead, by deploying Riverbed, Lucy Switchgear has reduced bandwidth utilization by 50 percent and has also avoided costly bandwidth upgrades.
Following the installation of the Riverbed Steelhead appliances, Lucy Switchgear's international workforce noticed a huge improvement to the network. Downloading files from the UK offices now can take a matter of seconds.
As an endorsement to the success of the project, Lucy Switchgear has recently purchased 30 Steelhead Mobile licences and plans to use these for its roaming employees. The technology sits on the laptops of mobile workers, giving the same improved application performance to workers on the move.
Ireland concluded: "Steelhead appliances are now an essential component of our IT infrastructure. That's how important Riverbed is to us."
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Steelhead Products
Riverbed WAN optimization solutions enable organizations of all sizes to overcome a host of severe problems, including poor application performance and insufficient bandwidth at remote sites. By speeding the performance of applications between data centers, remote offices and mobile workers by five to 50 times and in some cases up to 100 times, the Riverbed award-winning Steelhead products enable companies to consolidate IT, improve backup and replication processes to ensure data integrity, and improve staff productivity and collaboration. Steelhead products have been deployed in organizations ranging from the world's largest corporations with offices around the globe to small companies with a couple of sites that are just miles apart. To learn more, view Riverbed's demo: www.riverbed.com/pr/jack.
About Riverbed
Riverbed Technology is the IT infrastructure performance company. The Riverbed family of wide area network (WAN) optimization solutions liberates businesses from common IT constraints by increasing application performance, enabling consolidation, and providing enterprise-wide network and application visibility - all while eliminating the need to increase bandwidth, storage or servers. Thousands of companies with distributed operations use Riverbed to make their IT infrastructure faster, less expensive and more responsive. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available at www.riverbed.com.
Riverbed Technology, Riverbed, Steelhead, RiOS, Interceptor, and the Riverbed logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the expected demand for Riverbed's products and services, and statements relating to Riverbed's ability to meet the needs of distributed organizations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include our ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; our ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; the adoption rate of our products; our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our distribution partners; our ability to compete in our industry; fluctuations in demand, sales cycles and prices for our products and services; shortages or price fluctuations in our supply chain; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; general political, economic and market conditions and events; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. More information about these and other risks that may impact Riverbed's business are set forth in our Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on October 30, 2008. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Any future product, feature or related specification that may be referenced in this release are
for information purposes only and are not commitments to deliver any technology or enhancement. Riverbed reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time.
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© Press Release 2009
