Case Study: Simpson Strong-Tie achieves near-local Citrix XenApp performance and major bandwidth savings with Riverbed Steelhead

Riverbed Steelhead Products Accelerate Citrix XenApp for a Global Manufacturing Organization

Simpson Manufacturing Co., a global maker of building products with 38 sites in 11 countries, relied on Citrix XenApp thin‑client access for about 1,200 knowledge workers. Users experienced inconsistent, slow response times (sometimes 30–40 seconds) and long print delays, and IT faced the prospect of a $300,000 Asia data center build to try to fix performance—all with a small support team.

Simpson deployed Riverbed SteelHead appliances in remote offices and data centers to accelerate Citrix traffic and optimize WAN use. The result was near‑local application response, bandwidth reductions of 45–81% (with print traffic cut ~85%, peaking at 96%), avoidance of the $300,000 data center expense, immediate ROI, and reduced support burden.

Simpson Strong-Tie

Eugene Alfaro

Manager of Global IT Operations & Support