Case Study: Global RV Systems Manafacturing Company achieves centralized SAP PLM and LAN-like global performance with Riverbed Steelhead appliances

Riverbed Steelhead® Appliances Enable a Global Manufacturer to Deploy a Centralized SAP PLM System

A global communications equipment manufacturer with more than 11,000 employees and 15 distributed design centers was rolling out SAP mySAP PLM to unify product development, CAD and content management. Limited WAN bandwidth (T1 links) and high latencies forced IT to consider deploying local content, translation and backup servers at each site—adding cost, licenses, staff and complexity—rather than a single centralized system.

The company deployed Riverbed Steelhead appliances at each of 15 offices to optimize “any-to-any” traffic and accelerate access to a centralized PLM and content server. The result: LAN-like performance worldwide (downloads dropped from ~30–40 minutes to ~5), elimination of dozens of servers and related licenses, $15,000 annual bandwidth savings, reduced IT management overhead, and a reported payback of nine months—enabling faster collaboration and shorter product development cycles.