Case Study: Northwest Pipe Company achieves $1M+ in IT upgrade cost savings and superior application performance with Riverbed

Riverbed Application Performance Platform Cuts IT Upgrade Costs by $1 million

Northwest Pipe Company, a long-standing welded steel pipe manufacturer with nine U.S. plants and one in Mexico, faced aging, end-of-life infrastructure, failing remote servers, and rising data volumes. Network saturation on its MPLS links and end-of-life WAN optimization appliances were degrading application performance and threatening business operations, while planned hardware, DR, and bandwidth upgrades carried high recurring and capital costs.

Northwest Pipe implemented the Riverbed Network and Application Performance Platform—SteelHead appliances for WAN optimization and SteelFusion for zero-branch IT—to centralize data, secure replication, and accelerate applications. The integrated solution cost $400,000 versus $1.425 million for separate fixes, saving more than $1 million (including eliminating a $750,000 planned DR expense), restored application performance despite 25–35% traffic growth, and gave IT full visibility for faster troubleshooting.

Northwest Pipe Company

Jonathan Harris

Network Engineer