Science & Technology
Science and Technology
Science and Technology
Thu, December 10, 2009
Wed, December 9, 2009 Polycom Deploys Riverbed Steelhead Appliances to Accelerate Application Performance Worldwide
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - December 9, 2009) - Riverbed Technology (
Polycom has 48 offices and more than 2,600 employees around the world. In order to collaborate across multiple offices, Polycom employees constantly transfer files and access and share ERP data, and routinely run hundreds of hours of video conference calls each week. In fact, the company hosts more than 975,000 video calls per year over a single converged network. Its ERP server is centralized and the network must support a high volume of large file transfers, worldwide, including MAPI and SSL encryption traffic.
"Our video conferencing solutions allow teams around the world to work like they are in the same location. However, our systems and data were not keeping pace with our communications network requirements," said Glenn Noga, Polycom chief information officer. "Employees accessing systems in California from factories in Thailand and offices in Europe were experiencing delays. Our Thailand factory had delays of up to 22 minutes when transferring documents needed for shipping -- clearly something had to be done."
To address productivity issues related to slow employee access to data and applications, Polycom knew that adding bandwidth wasn't the answer. Polycom already had a solid network in place to handle voice and video conferencing traffic. The challenge was to overcome the latency caused by the distance between employees and data. Polycom investigated WAN optimization offerings from several companies, ultimately choosing the Riverbed IT infrastructure performance solution because it was more powerful and easier to manage than the other products tested.
"After piloting the Riverbed solution with our factory in Thailand, the network team was convinced that the solution would solve our problem and that they could put it in place quickly around the world. We also proved that the Riverbed solution would work without impacting our IP voice and video conferencing traffic," said Noga.
Polycom employees are impressed by the increased application performance delivered by the Steelhead appliances. File transfers that previously took 22 minutes now take employees less than 60 seconds to download, which has dramatically improved both employee collaboration and productivity.
To manage the terabytes of data moving through its 16 Steelhead appliances, Polycom deployed the Riverbed CMC, which allows for the configuration, updating and monitoring of the appliances through one web interface. "With limited staff, having the ability to remotely manage our devices was important to us. This allows us to easily update all appliances at the same time," said Noga.
Deploying Riverbed Steelhead appliances has also had an impact on Polycom's bottom line. The company found a solution that didn't require increases in bandwidth. The benefit recognized by the business was the improved system performance in remote locations. This was especially welcomed when business volumes significantly increase at the end of quarter.
About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (
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, 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.
