the pdf

CASE STUDY
in brief
Industry
»» Finance ­— Credit Unions
Challenges
Desert Schools Federal
Credit Union
»» Support 64 retail banking locations
Riverbed® Steelhead® Appliances Improve Bandwidth Speed for
Major Federal Credit Union
»» Transition retail banking computers from a
DSFCU is Arizona’s largest credit union with $3 billion in assets, more than 350,000 members
and 64 locations. As a not-for-profit cooperative, DSFCU has been serving members since 1939
with stellar service, innovative products, community outreach and education. DSFCU has been
named “best places to work in the valley” for four consecutive years and winner of 2007
Business Ethics Award from the Better Business Bureau Ethics Committee.
with client-server applications and
end-user devices
thin client architecture to a desktop platform
»» Manage bandwidth constraints
Solution
»» Steelhead appliances were deployed to
maximize bandwidth, help roll out new
desktops, and accelerate applications to 64
branch offices
Benefits
»» Reduce annual bandwidth costs by
optimizing the existing WAN infrastructure
and deferring circuit upgrades
»» Allow IT staff to manage 64 sites remotely
»» Improve application performance for endusers in branch offices
»» Achieve bandwidth reduction of 60% to 80%
Challenge: High cost and complexity of applications for branches
DSFCU has experienced exponential growth over the past five years. Maintaining a
centralized IT management strategy has facilitated that growth, while maintaining high
service levels to the end user. Today, DSFCU has 64 branch locations throughout the Phoenix,
AZ metro area and surrounding communities. Looking to the future, DSFCU plans to increase
service capabilities in these retail banking locations. These applications and end user devices
require local computing power and bandwidth connections to centralized data centers.
“We are running a core processing system that provides business-critical sales and service
functions in the retail branches. Thin clients powered by a Citrix infrastructure have
facilitated a centralized model to this point. In 2007, our IT team recognized that a full
desktop platform would be necessary to support business plans over the next three years.
Increased sales and service application
capability and end user devices such as
“The challenge was how do we
scanners, printers and card devices would
not upgrade our bandwidth to
require a desktop platform,” noted Chris
64 branches and still roll out
Kearney, AVP of Information Technology.
new desktops and applications
Managing bandwidth and trouble shooting
across the WAN.”
the WAN can be a daily challenge. Today,
adding bandwidth to individual locations
is fairly inexpensive in the United States, but still does not address latency between sites,
and software applications being chatty across the WAN. Scaling up DSFCU’s bandwidth
connections to their branch offices was not in their budget. However, end-users still needed
to access applications and files from centralized file servers. “The challenge was how do we
not upgrade our bandwidth to 64 branches and still roll out new desktops and applications
across the WAN. And we knew we could not justify an additional $62,000 per month in
bandwidth. Looking at WAN acceleration vendors became a necessity to support our business
strategy,” continued Kearney. “Plus, we wanted to keep our consolidation strategy in place.”
CASE STUDY: Desert Schools Federal Credit Union
IT Environment: Cisco Routers and VoIP
To support their many branch office bank applications and their main office in Phoenix,
DSFCU chose Cisco as their primary network partner. “We are a Cisco shop; our branch
offices are outfitted with Cisco’s Catalyst
3750 switches and Cisco 2821 integrated
“The Steelhead appliances make
services routers.” Desert Schools recently
our bandwidth connections more
migrated from a traditional PBX phone
efficient providing breathing
system to a voice over IP (VoIP) solution from
Cisco. Kearney remarked, “We have quite
room for voice.”
a complex network and manage our QoS
through our Cisco routers. The Steelhead appliances do not speed up our voice traffic, or
other forms of data communication, but make our bandwidth connections more efficient
providing breathing room for voice.”
Solution: Riverbed enables strategy without additional cost
Kearney decided to research the WAN optimization market even though Cisco is their trusted
partner. “Initially, we did research on WAN optimization on the Internet. We looked at both the
Riverbed and Cisco offerings,” said Kearney. “We tested both alternatives, and the installation of
Cisco WAAS took significantly longer than
Riverbed Steelhead appliances. With Cisco, it
The installation of the Cisco
took days to configure our routers and tweak
WAAS took longer than Riverbed
our QoS. With Riverbed we just deployed it
Steelhead appliances...it took
in-path, quickly configured the router, used
a pass through rule for our VoIP traffic, and
days to configure our routers and
in hours we were up and running with our
tweak our QoS. With Riverbed
evaluation tests.”
we just deployed it in-path,
configured the router, used a pass
through rule for our VoIP traffic,
and in hours we were up and
running with our evaluation tests.
The DSFCU engineering team thoroughly
conducted on-site tests during product
selection. They tested a typical regional
branch office that had an estimated
18 teller stations, and a back-office
department with approximately 15
stations. These branch offices typically
have a bandwidth allocation of 1.5 mbps, their test results showed an 80% bandwidth
reduction for main applications including a loan servicing platform , Adobe, and Excel.
Cost savings for DSFCU were crucial. “We knew, we could not deploy desktop computing to
64 branch offices with the network in place to support thin clients,” commented Kearney.
“The scope of the desktop project was getting expensive. So, we were looking for the best
partner to implement a WAN optimization solution easily and efficiently.”
With the Steelhead appliances in place, the DFSCU consolidation strategy never changed.
IT administrators at their operational site could manage the WAN optimization platform
centrally using the Riverbed Central Management Console (CMC). The CMC allows the
network administrator to have visibility into how applications are performing across their
WAN. Reports of the Steelhead appliances can be pulled into one report giving the network
administrator insight to diagnose problems, and maintain more control over applications
across the WAN.
Benefits: Consolidation efficiencies and bandwidth cost savings
By deploying Riverbed Steelhead appliances, DSFCU has seen significant bandwidth reduction,
which has helped IT justify the cost to the business. “Typically with Riverbed, we see 60-80%
bandwidth reduction overall on our
WAN. That’s like having three times more
Typically, we see 60-80%
bandwidth for our applications. That
bandwidth reduction overall on
bandwidth reduction gives more flexibility
our WAN, that’s like having three
for future applications needed at the
branch,” commented Kearney. “We can
times more bandwidth for our
implement new banking systems, running
applications. That bandwidth
SSL traffic and branch to data center
reduction
gives more flexibility
replication over our existing WAN links.”
for future applications needed at
In addition, DSFCU has a progressive
the branch.
virtualization environment that has allowed
them to reduce 50% of their servers in
their data center. “We were early adopters of VMware and we started to consolidate servers,
especially in our data centers. Riverbed is just like VMware — a technology that has allowed
IT to increase business capabilities and to provide cost savings.”
Looking forward, DSFCU expects to extend the efficiencies gained in branch-to-data center
communications to streamline data center-to-data center communication. Kearney said,
“Today, we use the Steelhead appliances to manage branch communication to both our
production and backup data centers. Tomorrow, the same technology can be applied to
communication between our data centers.” At present, the credit union has an overall RTO
objective of 24 hours for mission critical systems. Production data is either replicated nightly
or near real-time based on application capability to the backup data center. The Steelhead
devices minimize the branch traffic and congestion that may inhibit replication needs.
Summary
In the fall of 2007, Desert Schools Federal Credit Union (DSFCU) decided
to add more customer banking services at their branch offices. DSFCU
needed to provide a computing platform that could support ATM card
readers, check scanners, and receipt printers at every bank teller’s kiosk.
To support these peripherals, DSFCU chose to move away from their Citrix
thin-client environment to a desktop computing model that would provide
enough computer processing, memory, and storage to run banking
applications and peripherals.
However, DSFCU had a consolidated IT infrastructure and knew the rollout
of a desktop computing environment would affect user performance.
DSFCU considered upgrading bandwidth to its 64 branch offices to
overcome performance issues, but instead decided to look at WAN
optimization solutions. By deploying Riverbed Steelhead appliances, DSFCU
was able save hundred of thousands of dollars by not upgrading bandwidth,
while at the same time delivering LAN-like performance to remote sites.
About Riverbed
Riverbed Technology is the IT infrastructure
performance company. The Riverbed family
of wide area network (WAN) optimization
solutions liberates businesses from common
IT constraints by increasing application
performance, enabling consolidation, and
providing enterprise-wide network and
application visibility – all while eliminating
the need to increase bandwidth, storage
or servers. Thousands of companies with
distributed operations use Riverbed to make
their IT infrastructure faster, less expensive
and more responsive. Additional information
about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available
at www.riverbed.com
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