Science & Technology
Science and Technology
Science and Technology
Mon, October 5, 2009 Riverbed Technology: Leading South African Office Services Company Selects Riverbed to Optimize Bandwidth
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - October 5, 2009) - Riverbed Technology (
Laurence Slotow, national IT manager at Waltons, says, "Our ERP system relies heavily on the wide area network (WAN). Thanks to Riverbed we've managed to avoid a costly bandwidth upgrade and at the same time we are now able to access systems that were previously unusable. Riverbed has fundamentally changed the way we view our data and systems."
"The use of the Riverbed appliances has provided us with numerous benefits," adds Bütha van der Merwe, national network manager at Waltons. "These include boosting our network performance and enhancing our end user experience while saving the company money. We, like many other local companies, have been forced to build distributed network solutions because of the high cost and low availability of bandwidth in South Africa. Riverbed has now enabled us to change our mindset completely, and we have already started numerous other consolidation projects that should have an even bigger impact on our IT cost savings in the long run."
Waltons, a member of the Bidvest Group, has 100 branch stores and seven regional offices located across South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique. Each regional office supports between 10 to 35 stores, all requiring access to the company's ERP system.
Waltons outsources to a service provider that provides Internet services from its data center located in Cape Town. Prior to the Riverbed deployment, users at the regional offices and stores were experiencing severe delays when accessing Internet applications, including the ERP system, via the WAN. The company initially believed that to overcome the problem it would need to upgrade bandwidth for many of the WAN links in use, which would be a costly exercise.
Pieter Bekker, account executive at Datacentrix, a certified Riverbed reseller, explains, "Waltons knew it had to overcome the issue of remote users being forced to wait too long to access critical applications, but wanted to find an alternative to increasing bandwidth costs. We suggested they consider a WAN optimization solution from Riverbed."
Waltons decided to run a "proof of concept" project and installed Steelhead appliances at four of its regional offices. "The results were immediate," says Bekker. "Users noticed a dramatic increase in performance."
After a successful trial, Waltons decided to deploy Steelhead appliances at every regional office. In the third phase Waltons has installed Steelhead appliances at many store locations in South Africa.
As a possible future project, Waltons is reviewing how it can consolidate data and remove servers from its regional offices.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the expected demand for Riverbed's products and services, statements regarding customer cost savings following implementation of Riverbed solutions that may suggest likely or certain outcomes, 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 July 30, 2009. 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.
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 (
Riverbed Technology, Riverbed, Steelhead, RiOS, Interceptor, Think Fast, the Riverbed logo, Mazu, Profiler and Cascade are trademarks or registered trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used or mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.
