[November 18, 2009] Expand Networks Tapped by SKS Group Oy Tweet Nov 19, 2009 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- Expand Networks, a provider of optimizing WANs for branch office consolidation and virtualization, announced that SKS Group Oy, an operating wholesaler of machine building components and customer's partner in contract manufacturing in Finland, has deployed Expand Networks' WAN Optimization technology, which Expand said will accelerate the delivery of its business applications for its dispersed network environment. Headquartered in Finland, SKS Group Oy has over 13 remote offices stretching as far as Russia and China. SKS Group Oy undertook a server and storage consolidation project to simplify its IT infrastructure and reduce management complexity. However, as SKS' users became physically separated from the applications they needed to do their job, network performance began to suffer as the WAN struggled to cope with the increased demand the applications placed on the network. Veijo Merela, System Manager at SKS Group Oy, said, "With our servers consolidated at our head office in Finland, it became clear we had to maximize network performance across branch offices. Our users experienced slow and restricted access to applications and datacenter services, with both latency and congestion causing sluggish performance across the WAN. While consolidation was giving us the promised benefits of cost-saving and ease of management complexity, this was being undermined by poor network and application performance, which affected user productivity. To maximize our consolidated infrastructure, we needed a WAN optimization solution to underpin and accelerate it." With a bandwidth upgrade a comparatively expensive alternative, SKS Group Oy sought a WAN Optimization solution that would deliver accelerated access to applications and datacenter services in its consolidated environment. SKS Group Oy quickly Expand Network's Accelerators for their Virtual Server technology, providing integrated Wide Area File Services (WAFS) capabilities. "WAFS was a key deliverable for us. Removing remote file servers meant we could lose other services hosted on them, such as print. The Expand Accelerator's Virtual Server technology covers this and gives us true server consolidation without the need for additional boxes at the branch for extra services. Its WAN-Out capabilities also gives us resilience, we know that if the WAN ever goes down, all our remote offices can continue to access files via Expand and not halt productivity. In addition, QoS was a vital part of our needs, and with Expand we can guarantee that all our applications have the reserved bandwidth they need to make sure productivity is at the optimum level," said Merela. Adam Davison, VP Sales & Marketing, said, "SKS Group Oy has highlighted concrete statistical evidence of the difference Expand's technology has made to its business model. In particular, by implementing a Virtual Server, with our WAFS functionality, SKS Oy has additional business continuity benefits, and as they move toward virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), they can be confident that Expand's unique capabilities for ensuring virtual bandwidth in these challenging environments will support its users across the globe." ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]