Samlink - Riverbed

CASE STUDY
IN BRIEF
Industry
»
Finance and Insurance
Challenges
»
»
»
Unable to see the network “big picture”
to understand the cause of application
performance degradation
Lack of historical network
data hampered
Too much time spent “fire fighting,” too
little time available for strategic projects
Solution
»
»
»
»
An AppResponse Xpert Appliance in
the primary data center
Extensive real-time and historical
reporting of over 60 critical metrics
Easy drill-down to problem cause and
responsible party
Reports network and application
performance metrics in terms of
business impact
Benefits
»
»
»
»
Deep insight into network
conditions and their impact on
application performance
Improved trending and capacity
planning for their MPLS network
A faster and more efficient
network team with more time for
strategic projects
Immediate awareness of performance
degradation in critical applications
Samlink
Country-Wide Banking Services
Oy Samlink Ab is a leading supplier of banking services, both online and on-premise, to banks,
credit institutions, and investment service companies in Finland. The company provides IT solutions
for all phases of financial operation: banking services, such as loans, savings, and card transactions;
systems for on-line and self-service banking; and value-added services, such as data storage and
reporting, accounting systems, and financial management services. Samlink’s client banks serve
more than one million users in 460 branches, and over 500,000 on-line users. The company employs
280 people in six offices throughout Finland.
Challenge: A Business-Critical Network
As an Application Service Provider, Samlink
depends on an extensive MPLS network
leased from ISPs, as well as a number of VPN
connections. Day-to-day operation of the
network is, of course, critical to Samlink’s
business, but the company’s competitive
position depends on the ability to roll out new
applications in response to customer demand.
Their existing toolset, based on portable
protocol analyzers, couldn’t give them the
information they needed to efficiently manage
existing applications and plan for new ones.
“The analyzers were never in the right place
at the right time,” says Jussi Rãsãnen, System
Specialist-Network at Oy Samlink Ab. “We
needed a solution that was on the job 24-by7, and that could give us not only real-time
information about application slowdowns, but
historical information for capacity planning and
new application rollouts.
“[AppResponse Xpert] is
the most comprehensive
yet easy-to-use application
performance management
tool we have seen. Equally
important is its rapid time to
value, which derives from its
ability to greatly accelerate
problem-solving, and reduce
the number of IT personnel
wewho need to be involved.”
Jussi Räsänen
System Specialist-Network
Oy Samlink Ab
Solution: Network Insight,
End-to-End
For assistance, Samlink turned to Bemecon Oy, a Finnish solution provider specializing in systems
management. After a careful audit of Samlink’s IT needs, Bemecon recommended and installed a
Riverbed® AppResponse Xpert® Appliance at Samlink’s primary data center in Helsinki.
“AppResponse Xpert almost immediately gave us a new view of our network and applications,”
says Jussi. “We could see application slowdowns anywhere on our network, and monitor network
load changes and track their cause. And since it can monitor all our traffic from a single point, we
don’t have to worry about being in the right place at the right time: the data we need to solve a
problem is always waiting for us.”
CASE STUDY: Samlink
The AppResponse Xpert appliance was put to work immediately for one of the IT team’s
primary needs: monitoring the MPLS network. “We use [AppResponse Xpert] to investigate
trends in our MPLS usage,” comments Jussi, “and discern who is using our capacity, and for
what.”
He also notes how useful the historical information supplied by the appliance is for capacity
planning. “We can now much more accurately judge whether or not to add bandwidth in
preparation for a new application rollout.”
Benefits: Proactive, Not Reactive
Mr. Râsânen also reports a notable
improvement in his team’s
troubleshooting capabilities. “The
[AppResponse Xpert] appliance has
given us a new way to look at the overall
condition of the network and how that
affects important applications. We can
often see signs of trouble before they
become serious enough to affect our
users.” Equally important is the rapidity
with which the team can respond to
serious issues. “We know who the
problem is affecting, and how important
it is to our business, and we spend less
time troubleshooting and more time on strategic projects like new application rollouts.”
Asked to sum up the AppResponse
Xpert benefits to his team, Jussi
says: “[AppResponse Xpert] is the
most comprehensive yet easy-to-use
application performance management
tool we have seen. Equally important is
its rapid time to value, which derives from
its ability to greatly accelerate problemsolving, and reduce the number of IT
personnel who need to be involved.”
“[AppResponse Xpert’s] ease
of deployment and extremely
rapid return on investment
faster than any other product
we’ve worked with—make
it a must-have tool not
only for our customers,
but for our consultants.
The comprehensive nature
of the data enables us
to vividly demonstrate
the need, not only for
“[AppResponse Xpert],
but for other products, in
business-oriented terms
that customers understand.” About Riverbed
Riverbed delivers performance for the
globally connected enterprise. With
Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and
intelligently implement strategic initiatives
such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud
computing, and disaster recovery without
fear of compromising performance. By giving
enterprises the platform they need to
understand, optimize and consolidate their
IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast,
fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns
with the business needs of the organization.
Additional information about Riverbed
(NASDAQ: RVBD) is available at
www.riverbed.com.
2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011
Sakari Haapaniemi
Managing Director
Bemecon Oy
Bemecon
Bemecon, a leading Finnish solutions provider, brings more than 100 years of collective IT
experience to its client engagements, both in Finland and internationally. The company offers
comprehensive services in the field of IT Systems Management, combining consulting, product
sales, and training to deliver complete solutions that match customer needs.
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