Case Study: Independent Purchasing Cooperative achieves streamlined, future-proof IT infrastructure and operations with F5 Networks

IPC, a SUBWAY Franchisee-Owned Organization, Streamlines and Future-Proofs IT Infrastructure and Operations

Independent Purchasing Cooperative (IPC), a SUBWAY® franchisee-owned organization that supports 30,000 restaurants, was constrained by Citrix virtual appliances that offered poor support, limited capacity and hard-to-manage features as traffic and service demands grew (mysubwaycareer.com alone receives thousands of applicants daily). Seeking to future-proof its VMware-based environment and simplify operations, IPC evaluated vendors and moved to F5 Networks, adopting the BIG‑IP platform and VIPRION chassis/blade hardware.

F5 Networks deployed BIG‑IP (with VIPRION, iRules and iApps), consolidating multiple application delivery services onto a single, modular platform, eliminating licensing/support headaches and enabling immediate, non-disruptive scaling by adding blades. The change simplified management, sped application deployments, made URL redirection and maintenance pages trivial with iRules, and added analytics for faster troubleshooting—supporting IPC’s growth of nearly 100 new franchises per month while reliably serving thousands of franchisees and web users.

Independent Purchasing Cooperative

Giovani Potesta

Manager of IT Infrastructure