Case Study: Wisconsin Department of Children and Families achieves LAN-like performance and 76% WAN traffic reduction with Riverbed

Greenfield IT implementation relies on WAN optimization to deliver LAN-like performance in remote offices

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF), a state agency created in 2008 to support children and families, faced a tight five-month deadline and limited budget to build a greenfield IT infrastructure for roughly 1,200 users across 22 sites. Leadership had promised employees better performance than the legacy distributed environment, yet chose to centralize applications and data in Madison — creating the challenge of delivering LAN-like responsiveness to remote offices over the WAN with a small IT team.

DCF implemented VMware virtualized desktops (VDI) and Riverbed SteelHead WAN optimization appliances to centralize management and accelerate traffic to remote sites. The combined solution delivered LAN-like speeds, eliminated hour-long logins, kept sensitive data in the data center, cut weekly WAN traffic by about 76%, improved user mobility, and is projected to pay for itself in roughly two years.

Wisconsin Department of Children and Families

Maytee Aspuro

CIO and IT Director