Case Study: NZ Department of Conservation achieves 500% improvement in network bandwidth utilisation with Riverbed Steelhead WAN optimisation

NZ Department of Conservation - Customer Case Study

The New Zealand Department of Conservation (DOC), a government agency of about 3,000 staff spread across 60 mostly remote offices, faced severe WAN bandwidth constraints that were degrading application performance and preventing centralisation of document management and backups. When rolling out a new central document management system, DOC needed to overcome low-speed links (many sites on 2MB connections) and find headroom for future services like web conferencing.

DOC deployed Riverbed Steelhead WAN optimisation appliances across its sites, managed centrally via a Riverbed Central Management Console. The solution delivered dramatic results: about a 500% improvement in bandwidth utilisation, an 85% reduction in backup traffic at the data centre link, effectively halved potential telecommunications spend, and allowed DOC to retire its legacy Citrix infrastructure—while providing better visibility and simpler, centrally managed performance.

Department of Conservation

Ken Walker

Manager, Technology and Outsourced Services