Case Study: Allens Arthur Robinson achieves data center consolidation and 4.8x SRDF/A capacity increase with Riverbed Steelhead appliances

Riverbed Steelhead Appliances Optimize EMC SRDF/A for Leading Law Firm

Allens Arthur Robinson, a leading law firm with ~1,000 staff across Australia and Asia, needed to consolidate its data center while preserving top-tier application performance for its lawyers and implementing EMC SRDF/A replication of roughly 2.5 TB to a disaster‑recovery site. Upgrading WAN links was prohibitively expensive (EMC had recommended a 40 Mbps pipe), and the firm needed a way to maintain performance and resiliency without that cost.

By deploying Riverbed Steelhead appliances and disabling Symmetrix compression, Allens achieved a 4–6× data reduction (4.8× capacity increase) with peak reductions up to 94%, enabling SRDF/A replication over the existing 12 Mbps link instead of a 40 Mbps upgrade. The result: successful consolidation with improved application response, built-in redundancy, and about $100K in annual bandwidth savings.

Allens Arthur Robinson

Shawn Schmidt

Infrastructure Manager