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GHD Selects Riverbed SD-WAN Solution as the Foundation for its Agile Business NetworkRiverbed (News - Alert) Technology, the application performance company, in partnership with global professional services company GHD, announced successful deployment of Riverbed SteelConnect - an app-defined SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) solution that simplifies networking for the cloud-centric enterprise - to enable the rapid deployment of 50 new offices onto the company's network, fuelling stronger global collaboration, business agility and reducing global telecom costs by 75%. Tweet This: Riverbed helps @GHDspeaks rapidly provision new sites with SD-WAN solution: http://rvbd.ly/2lswS7X GHD, a leader in engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services, has a complex IT landscape which spans more than 10 countries, 8,500 employees, leverages 3,000 business and technical applications, and includes GHD's own private cloud. In 2014, GHD merged with North American engineering consultancy Conestoga-Rovers & Associates (CRA), which included the addition of more than 3000 employees in over 100 offices, including 50 small sites. Elizabeth Harper, the Chief Information Officer of GHD, was tasked with integrating all the new offices and their IT systems into the wider GHD business. Some of the new sites were geographically dispersed across the US and Canada, designed to be as close to their clients as possible. At the same time, the new offices needed instant access and connectivity to the GHD network globally so employees can collaborate in real time. Watch Video: GHD CIO on Deploying SteelConnect to Rapidly Connect 50 New Offices Using SteelConnect, GHD dramatically reduced the cost of network design and deployment, and was able to connect all 50 of the smaller offices in four weeks. Harper estimates that if GHD had chosen a traditional networking approach, the project would have taken at least three months to complete. "We did a really thorough assessment of the options in the market and what we found with SteelConnect was a very low, almost zero-touch deployment, said Elizabeth Harper, CIO, GHD. "SteelConnect allows us to preconfigure a device using a cloud portal before delivering it to the physical site. This means that a non-IT person at the small office can follow simple instructions, plug the device in and have everything up and running in minutes instead of days or weeks." GHD plans to expand the deployment to traditional and larger offices, and estimates SteelConnect will save the business roughly $1 Million (USD) a year. Harper added: "What this technology has done is enable us to cost-effectively connect people who wouldn't have had this type of connectivity in the past, and they now really feel like they're part of the same organization. They have access to all of our broader systems, and can make a VoIP call to anyone in GHD globally, or colaborate using intensive 3D modelling applications. This has made a tremendous cultural impact." GHD is also very pleased with how easy SteelConnect is to manage and maintain, along with the ability to use SteelConnect to connect direct into public cloud networks such as Microsoft (News - Alert) Azure and AWS. In addition to SteelConnect, GHD has deployed the complete Riverbed Application Performance Platform across its organization in order to enable collaboration between project teams spread across the globe:
"GHD's use of emerging technologies and our ability to respond quickly to client demands is how we differentiate ourselves in the market, and Riverbed has been a trusted strategic partner in our success," said Harper. "The Riverbed platform has enabled us to optimize our network traffic, given us greater visibility of what's actually happening across our network and application environment so we can continue to achieve great performance, and it's helped us simplify our branch office implementations - all of which are critical to driving the evolution of our business and our ability to serve our clients." Riverbed SteelConnect and the Riverbed Application Performance Platform Riverbed is delivering solutions to help companies transition from legacy hardware to a new software-defined and cloud-centric approach to networking, and improve end user experience, allowing enterprises' digital transformation initiatives to reach their full potential. The Riverbed Application Performance Platform™ delivers the agility, visibility, and performance businesses need to be successful in a cloud and digital world. By leveraging the Platform, organizations can deliver apps, data, and services from any public, private, or hybrid cloud across any network to any end-point. A key part of the platform, Riverbed SteelConnect™ is a revolutionary application-defined SD-WAN solution that provides an intelligent and simplified approach to designing, deploying and managing distributed networks. SteelConnect is the industry's first and only product that unifies deployment and orchestration of hybrid WANs (Internet & MPLS), branch networks (LAN & WLAN), and cloud environments, including one-click connectivity to AWS and Microsoft Azure. Connect with Riverbed About Riverbed Riverbed, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue, is the leader in Application Performance Infrastructure, delivering the most complete platform for the hybrid enterprise to ensure applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues can be proactively detected and resolved before impacting business performance. Riverbed enables hybrid enterprises to transform application performance into a competitive advantage by maximizing employee productivity and leveraging IT to create new forms of operational agility. Riverbed's 28,000+ customers include 97% of the Fortune 100 and 98% of the Forbes Global 100. Learn more at www.riverbed.com. Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.
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