Case Study: Universal Health Services, Inc. achieves faster application performance, data-center consolidation, and 33% bandwidth savings with Riverbed SteelHead appliances

Riverbed Steelhead Appliances Improve Application Speed for Major Healthcare Firm

Universal Health Services (UHS), a Fortune 500 hospital management company serving 125 hospitals, needed to consolidate two data centers while migrating from legacy "green screen" to web-based clinical and database applications. The shift dramatically increased WAN traffic and slowed application responsiveness for physicians at remote sites, so UHS sought a solution that would integrate with its Cisco-based hybrid WAN, be easy to deploy, and require minimal administrative overhead.

UHS deployed Riverbed Steelhead appliances (initially at eight locations) to accelerate SQL/Oracle transactions and optimize WAN traffic without widespread circuit upgrades. The appliances made remote applications feel nearly local, cut annual bandwidth costs by about 33%, virtually eliminated performance-related support calls, and enabled successful data-center consolidation and broader deployment of web-based clinical applications—improving physician satisfaction and patient service.

Universal Health Services, Inc.

Matthew Moeller

Senior Network Coordinator