Case Study: Cubist Pharmaceuticals achieves 55x faster VMware image replication and LAN-like app performance with Riverbed Steelhead appliances

Riverbed® Steelhead® Appliances Accelerate VMware Image Replication and Applications for Pharmaceutical Firm

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, a rapidly growing biopharmaceutical firm best known for the antibiotic CUBICIN, was consolidating IT services in Lexington while supporting a manufacturing site in Italy and a disaster recovery (DR) facility. Limited international bandwidth and heavy daily data transfers—plus requirements for VoIP, videoconferencing and nightly Oracle/VMware replication for compliance—meant the Italy link was overloaded and a costly bandwidth upgrade loomed.

Cubist deployed Riverbed Steelhead appliances to accelerate WAN traffic and replication. The appliances delivered LAN-like performance to Italy (15–35x faster for Exchange/CIFS), enabled VoIP/video over the constrained link, and sped VMware image replication by roughly 50–55x (migrations reported ~55x faster); nightly Oracle ERP replication (240GB and 120GB) completed over a 1 Mbps link in about 1.5 hours. The solution deferred an expensive bandwidth upgrade, improved DR and compliance capabilities, and paid for itself within a year.

Cubist Pharmaceuticals

Michael Geldart

Sr. Manager of Computer Operations