CASE STUDY

IN BRIEF

Industry

» Utilities

Challenge

» Centralize applications and avoid expensive bandwidth upgrade

Solution

» Riverbed Steelhead Appliances

» Riverbed Central Management Console

Benefits

» $13,000 saved annually on bandwidth costs

» More than 3x increase in optimized bandwidth capacity

» Over 70% reduction in file transfer time

» Enhanced remote IT support

» Increased employee productivity

STOMOUtilities Company Centralizes Applications and Avoids Expensive Bandwidth Upgrade with Riverbed

Background

Suez-Tractebel Operation and Maintenance Oman L.L.C (STOMO) (www.stomo.com.om) is the largest provider of operation and maintenance services in the Sultanate of Oman, operating in areas such as power generation and water desalination. In Oman, there are some 370 employees, and six offices and plants. The company also has offices in other territories including, United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

Challenge: Centralize applications without compromising performance and avoid expensive bandwidth upgrade

Following expansion STOMO experienced additional pressure on its IT resources, with more users, more applications, and more network traffic, placing greater demands on available bandwidth.

Shageen Prabhakaran, STOMO IT manager, explains: “When we started operating, we had one plant; now we have six. The increased number of plants made it harder to manage applications, especially ERP, so we centralized them to our data center. However, users then began to complain of poor application

performance, especially when opening folders. This was frustrating and affecting productivity, and whenever the email traffic volume was high, it choked the bandwidth.”

The STOMO wide area network (WAN) consists of an MPLS leased line, with a 1Mb connection at the company headquarters, and 512kb links at each plant. There are two data centers, and the key applications include SAP, Microsoft Exchange 2007, and Oracle HRMS. STOMO also operates a remote IT support service, which was being impaired by the reduction in available bandwidth.

STOMO was keen to avoid upgrading the bandwidth in order to resolve the issue, as Prabhakaran explains, “bandwidth costs are high, so we were looking for a more cost effective solution. We were aware of our offices in Istanbul and Dubai using a WAN optimization solution from Riverbed Technology and this looked like a better option.”

STOMO did consider a product from Blue Coat but quickly discounted it. “A critical element for us is strong product support, and for this reason, we removed Blue Coat from the selection process,” explains Prabhakaran. “It’s no good investing in a product if you can’t get good support. Riverbed Technology provides solid local support, and the fact that we were already using Riverbed solutions, gave us even more confidence.”

Solution: Riverbed delivers 70% reduction in file transfer speed, 3x increase in optimized bandwidth capacity, and easy deployment

STOMO conducted an evaluation of the Riverbed® Steelhead® appliances at its data center in Barka and branch office in Ruysal. A wide range of applications and protocols were tested including, CIFS, MAPI, HTTP, SQL, and SAP, and the results were conclusive; Deploying Riverbed resulted in a 70% reduction in file transfer speeds, with HTTP optimization reduced by 82%, data across the WAN reduced from 19.7GB to 3GB, and optimized bandwidth capacity increased by more than 3-fold.

“I noticed the difference when accessing the remote servers from our head office; it was like being on a local LAN,” notes Prabhakaran. “The performance offered by the Steelhead appliances, coupled with the costs savings and strong local support, made Riverbed a compelling proposition.” STOMO decided to deploy the appliances at all of its sites, and Riverbed Central Management Console (CMC) at its data center.

The increased number of plants made it harder to manage applications,

especially ERP.”

“I noticed the difference when accessing the remote servers from our head office; it was

like being on a local LAN.”

“Deployment was fast and simple,” says Prabhakaran. “Because an appliance is a pass-through device you just connect it to your network and that’s it. There was no downtime whatsoever.”

Benefits: Riverbed solutions helped avoid expensive bandwidth upgrades and resulted in improved application performance, and greater network visibility

“The benefits we have gained from deploying Riverbed have been more than we anticipated,” says Prabhakaran, “First; we have made significant cost savings by not increasing the bandwidth — some $13,000 a year. Applications are running much faster, and as a result, ERP usage has increased and so has employee efficiency. In addition the remote IT support service has been enhanced, so now

employees can receive help quickly while sitting at their PCs.”

Riverbed CMC also provides greater network visibility. “We can see what applications are being accessed and which ports are being used. I now regularly analyze reports on throughput and optimization to ensure that

the network is operating efficiently. We don’t have a large data pipe, but thanks to Riverbed, we can do all that we need to do across our WAN within the available bandwidth. Quite simply, Riverbed is a great product that has helped make our organization more efficient and achieve significant cost savings,” says Prabhakaran.

About RiverbedRiverbed delivers application performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance. By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organization. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available at www.riverbed.com.

2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011

CASE STUDY: STOMO

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SUMMARY

When STOMO underwent expansion, the additional data traffic generated put pressure on the company WAN. When the company began a centralization project to improve application management, employees began to complain of poor application performance. Increasing bandwidth was expensive so the company considered a WAN optimization solution from Riverbed, as a cost effective alternative.

By deploying Riverbed, STOMO has achieved annual savings of $13,000 by avoiding an expensive bandwidth upgrade, realized a 3x increase in optimized bandwidth capacity, reduced network traffic by more than 70%, improved application performance and increased employee productivity.

“We don’t have a large data pipe, but thanks to Riverbed, we can do all that we need to do across our WAN within

the available bandwidth.”

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