Case Study: St. Mary Land & Exploration Company achieves faster Microsoft application performance and halved WAN backup windows with Riverbed SteelHead appliances

Riverbed Accelerates Microsoft Application Performance and WAN Backup for Oil and Gas Company

St. Mary Land & Exploration Company, a Denver‑based oil and gas firm with about 550 employees across six regional offices and numerous field sites, was suffering slow Microsoft application performance and bandwidth saturation. Consolidated Exchange servers in Denver and overnight LeftHand snapshot replication created morning email slowdowns and long backup windows that spilled into business hours, prompting frequent user complaints.

St. Mary deployed seven Riverbed Steelhead appliances—one at the Denver data center, five at regional offices and one in the field—with the Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) running Windows for a site without a server. Deployment was simple and integration seamless; backups were cut in half freeing up bandwidth, CIFS file operations became up to twice as fast, application and email response improved immediately with no more morning email complaints, and the RSP eliminated the need to buy additional remote hardware.

St. Mary Land & Exploration Company

Nate Zeigler

IT Manager