Secunet Selects Riverbed’s WDS Solutions

Riverbed Technology, Inc. announced that secunet
Security Networks AG, one of Europe’s leading suppliers of products and
services in the area of highly complex IT security solutions, has
selected and deployed Riverbed’s Steelhead WDS appliances at sites
across Germany. secunet deployed Riverbed’s Steelhead appliances at its
seven offices across Germany as part of its efforts to simplify its IT
and reduce management costs, while at the same time improving
application performance to make remote employees more productive.

secunet
renders security services, such as consultancy and systems solutions,
for information security and related activities in telecommunications
and information technology. They provide services in the areas of
identity management, network solutions, and card solutions for security
and payment processing. The company also provides services in the areas
of security consulting and management. Their customers comprise
medium-sized enterprises, as well as national and international public
bodies. The company is based in Essen, Germany and is a subsidiary of
Giesecke & Devrient GmbH.

secunet’s IT department sought
to consolidate its IT infrastructure in order to more effectively
manage their systems and reduce costs. One of the conditions was that
the network security provided by secunet’s Secure Inter-Network
Architecture (SINA) may not be affected. SINA is an IP-based VPN
technology from secunet that encrypts traffic between remote sites.
secunet’s small IT department found itself continually trying to keep
pace with their increasing network complexity. Carsten Borkus, secunet
partner and manager of systems administration, recalled the situation
the company was facing, "In order to keep each of our seven offices
running smoothly, IT consultants were hired as part-time administrators
at each site, increasing costs to the company. At the same time, we
knew that poor application performance over the wide area network (WAN)
was affecting employee productivity."

Mr. Borkus continued,
"It was an interesting dilemma, how to make our IT easier to manage but
at the same time make our employees more productive." secunet chose
Riverbed’s solutions to overcome the competing demands of simplicity
and performance. Working with MTI Technology GmbH, a system integrator
that specializes in storage solutions, secunet’s IT team deployed
Steelhead appliances at its six remote sites and corporate
headquarters.

According to Borkus, "We had no difficulties
installing the Steelhead appliances. They were especially easy to
integrate into our existing SINA infrastructure. Our team found the
setup process quite simple. It required minimal configuration, and then
simply plugging in the device. We saw results immediately. Our first
thoughts were ‘this is unbelievable’ and ‘the reports must be wrong.’
We noticed – and so did the remote workers – that file and network
access was incredibly fast. We didn’t have to time it to see how many
seconds we saved. The results were obvious to anyone who had tried to
work over the WAN before."

secunet saw benefits beyond
application performance, including a sustained decrease in the amount
of bandwidth they were using. With Steelhead appliances, they freed up
on average 35 percent of their bandwidth; and, at peak times, about 93
percent. The combination of the increased performance and the decreased
bandwidth utilization meant that the company could successfully
consolidate its remote servers. Following deployment of the Steelhead
appliances, secunet’s IT group consolidated the company’s 14 remote
servers.

Borkus commented, "The consolidation of our
servers meant that we could also save the time of IT administrators in
those locations, and give them more strategic projects to work on. Part
of the reason for this is that the Steelhead appliances are so easy to
manage. We manage them in conjunction with the Central Management
Console (CMC). The statistics provided are very helpful and
informative. The boxes just do their job without the need for much
maintenance work, which is very important to us as we are a small IT
department."

Borkus summed up the project by describing
secunet’s return on investment with Riverbed. "First, are the 14
consolidated servers. We no longer have to pay for the refresh of that
equipment. More importantly, our administrators can spend time on more
important projects than server management. Next, there is the bandwidth
savings. It’s easy to put a number on pushing our additional bandwidth
investments. Finally, there are the performance gains. It is hard to
put a value on more productive employees, but everyone understands that
people are our most important asset. The more we can do to make them
productive and happy, the better it is for our clients and our company.
Riverbed has helped us achieve this goal."

Riverbed Technology

secunet
Security Networks AG