Case Study: Qatargas achieves 80%+ faster file downloads and avoids costly bandwidth upgrades with Riverbed SteelHead

Riverbed Steelhead appliances improve application performance for liquefied natural gas company

Qatargas, a pioneer in liquefied natural gas based in Ras Laffan, Qatar, runs a centralized data center supporting on‑campus and multiple remote offices worldwide. Remote employees were experiencing slow file downloads and poor Microsoft Exchange performance over WAN links; upgrading the MPLS bandwidth was prohibitively expensive and would not fix latency or QoS issues, so the company sought an alternative to improve productivity without a costly bandwidth upgrade.

Qatargas deployed Riverbed SteelHead appliances at its six domestic branch offices and three international sites, managed centrally with Riverbed’s Central Management Console. The solution avoided the bandwidth upgrade and delivered a 3x improvement in bandwidth utilization, more than 80% faster file downloads (100 MB files fell from over 20 minutes to under five), 70% faster backups, and measurable boosts in Exchange performance and employee productivity—enabling expansion while cutting operating costs.

Qatargas

Mohammed Abu Nejim

Head of Data Networks