Case Study: California Department of Fish and Wildlife doubles network capacity without bandwidth upgrades with Riverbed SteelHead

SteelHead Appliances Enable Doubling of Network Traffic without Bandwidth Upgrades

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), a 3,000‑employee agency with 117 facilities statewide, faced severe WAN congestion: 27 key offices on POTS, T1 and Ethernet circuits were routinely ~90% saturated, hampering file sharing, backups and productivity. The problem was poised to worsen during a planned migration from Novell to Microsoft, which would temporarily double traffic as both systems ran in parallel.

CDFW ran a Riverbed SteelHead proof‑of‑concept and then deployed appliances in 26 offices, effectively doubling usable bandwidth without buying more circuits. The appliances improved caching and QoS, enabled a smooth Exchange migration, cut software licensing and support costs, made VoIP and remote work viable, and noticeably increased user productivity.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Erik Davis

Network Projects Consultant