Case Study: Liquigas achieves 3x improvement in application performance and seamless data-center consolidation with Riverbed SteelHead

Riverbed Steelhead appliances accelerate applications and increase productivity for energy company

Liquigas, Italy’s leading LPG distributor with 1,200 employees and a nationwide network of branches and retailers, consolidated nine regional data centers to its Milan headquarters to simplify IT and reduce costs. After consolidation, employees experienced significant WAN latency—especially with Windows file‑sharing, Office and email—leading to slow application access and reduced productivity.

Liquigas tested WAN optimization and deployed Riverbed Steelhead appliances in 40 branches; installation was quick and non‑disruptive. The solution delivered about a 3× improvement in application/file access (roughly a 70% reduction in response time), reduced bandwidth use, allowed the consolidation to be completed without affecting users, and restored employee productivity while enabling future initiatives like VoIP/CRM.

Liquigas

Riccardo Salierno

Head of Information Systems