Case Study: Flow International achieves rapid ERP performance and 86% WAN data reduction with Riverbed Steelhead WAN Optimization

Flow International - Customer Case Study

Flow International Corporation, a global leader in ultrahigh-pressure waterjet technology with about 600 employees, needed to replace its aging AS/400 ERP platform and centralize applications and disaster recovery. After moving to Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 accessed over RDP, users worldwide experienced severe latency and unusable performance, and the company faced costly bandwidth and replication constraints.

Flow deployed Citrix virtualization together with Riverbed Steelhead WAN‑optimization appliances (13 units across Europe, Asia, the Americas) and EMC RecoverPoint for replication. The result: ERP response times in Germany fell from ~70 seconds to 2–3 seconds, WAN data reduction reached 86% with a 7.94x effective bandwidth increase, typical acceleration exceeded 80%, and RecoverPoint replication was optimized >95% (near‑real‑time replication within ~5 seconds), eliminating user complaints and avoiding major infrastructure and bandwidth investments.

Flow International

Jason Dickens

Enterprise Infrastructure Manager