Sidel Group Has Deployed Riverbed Steelhead WDS Appliances

Riverbed Technology, Inc. announced that the Sidel
Group has selected and deployed Riverbed Steelhead WDS appliances.

The deployment, which is taking place at 43 locations worldwide, allows
Sidel to improve global business processes, collaboration and
productivity associated with its highly integrated and complex
packaging system.

The Sidel Group, together with Tetrapak and
De Laval, is one of the three divisions of Tetra Laval, which employs
30,000 workers. It has over 50 years of experience in bottling
solutions, from the beginning to the end of the bottling process of
various beverages, ranging from mineral waters to beer, milk, fruit
juices, and sensitive beverages needing sterile treatments. A bottling
line features a high degree of differentiation and complexity, and has
anywhere from six to twelve machines that are produced and installed by
Sidel. The Group has installed more than 27,000 bottling machines in
191 countries, which differ according to the type of beverages and
quality of materials used for bottling. To exceed customer
expectations, Sidel’s highly distributed workforce relies on
up-to-the-minute information and immediate hand-off of processes
between its offices in Europe, Africa, the United States, Asia, and
Oceania.

Its
biggest challenge is creating an efficient network for the transmission
of data for its distributed workforce – sales, engineering,
fabrications, project management, installation activities, and
after-sales assistance. In addition, Sidel’s corporate network is
extended to its partners and customers. Machines installed onsite with
customers are connected to Sidel’s headquarters for diagnostics, remote
monitoring and performance assessment.

Sidel
was unable to guarantee access to corporate data for its distributed
workforce, including mobile workers and strategic partners. Upon first
review, Sidel thought increasing its bandwidth whenever needed would be
the best option. The group quickly determined that they risked spending
a considerable amount of money without the guarantee of obtaining
acceptable performance and speeds in remote locations. This
dissatisfaction of this process prompted Sidel to review various WDS
solutions.

Sidel’s review took into account economic
concerns, such as the cost and the foreseeability of the required
investments; technical requirements, which include the ease of
adoption, the reliability of the alternatives, the degree of complexity
in the products, the capabilities to support mobile workers, and the
ability of the products to facilitate the consolidation of IT
resources; the presence of extra features, such as security functions;
and finally, the performance and reporting capabilities of the
alternatives. Sidel selected Riverbed Steelhead appliances for their
ability to deliver superior performance, reliability, and ease and
speed of integration, installation, and customization. In addition, the
Steelhead appliances offer the maximum flexibility and scalability,
which allows Sidel to obtain high performance for its applications over
the WAN now and in the future.

"We
chose Riverbed because they delivered the best combination of speed and
ease-of-use and simplicity," said Egidio Ghinelli, vice president of
information technology at Sidel. The group was especially impressed by
the immediate user feedback received upon implementation of the
Steelhead appliances. According to Ghinelli, this is the most
significant parameter for evaluating the real efficiency of a WAN: the
users instantly experienced significant improvements in performance.

"After
completing the installation, we expect to reduce our bandwidth costs,
but the main benefit that we get from Riverbed is LAN-like performance
for our remote users now and in the future, thanks to Riverbed’s
inherent flexibility", points out Ghinelli.

Riverbed Technology Inc.

Sidel
Group