Riverbed enables Engen to improve employee productivity, data back-up and security across Global Organization

Riverbed® SteelFusion™ has improved IT operations and information security at branch office locations by taking servers, applications, and data out of the branches and consolidating them in secure data centers. Additionally, Riverbed® SteelHead™ optimizes the company’s wide area networks (WAN) and delivers accelerated application performance across the entire network for an enhanced end user experience at any site.

“Our help desk was getting lots of complaints from end-users,” recalled Nicholas Lain, architecture specialist at Engen. “For instance, they had sluggish access to SAP. Screens would freeze and connections were dropped. Ultimately our users were very frustrated and their productivity suffered.”

Data security was another issue at remote sites. Data stored on servers was vulnerable, and backups to the data center didn’t always go as planned. “Our back-up window was short. We often fell behind in getting backups to Cape Town. When we backed up, everything on the network slowed down,” said Lain.

Extensive research and impressive proof-of-concept (POC) results convinced Engen to go with a Riverbed solution. One POC test using Riverbed SteelHead resulted in 75x faster copy filing time and a more than 50% data reduction across the WAN. Another test at a Cape Town data center saw a 70% reduction in WAN data and a 3x increase in connection speed, which translates into better application performance and overall better business performance. Riverbed SteelFusion uniquely integrates SteelHead WAN optimization, together with server virtualization and patented storage delivery technology, into a software-defined edge solution that would now enable Engen to centralize all of its branch operations, bringing backup processes and company data back to the secure data center.

Engen deployed 33 SteelHead CX devices, 29 Riverbed SteelFusion Edge appliances and four Riverbed SteelFusion Core appliances at strategic points on its South African WAN.”Deploying Riverbed enabled us to re-architect our branch IT, so that all branch offices and depots are now directly connected to the WAN,” said Lain.

According to Engen, an 80% reduction in data across the network has transformed the end-user experience at the remote offices. “Before Riverbed, we were limited in what we could provide end-users,” said Lain. “We’ve now rolled out a full Windows 7 desktop and the end-user experience is the same as if employees were based at our main office. The calls from frustrated users have disappeared.”

SteelFusion has improved data security by eliminating physical servers, storage and backup infrastructure at remote sites, centralizing data and backup processes at the data center, and projecting data and applications to remote locations as needed. Exchange servers have been removed from remote offices, and Exchange data is now delivered encrypted from the data center at local speed. SteelFusion has also eliminated the problem with back-ups being late to Cape Town since backing up is now centralized and performed as often as necessary.