Marvell

IN BRIEF

Industry

• Manufacturing

Challenges

• Speed communication and collaboration between offices

Solution

• Riverbed Steelhead appliances

Benefits

• 60 times faster throughput for Windows file sharing
• LAN-like access and performance for employees in remote sites
• 80% reduction in bandwidth use

Marvell

Riverbed Steelhead Appliances Accelerate Applications and Improve Collaboration Between Offices

Marvell (www.marvell.com) is the leading global semiconductor provider of complete broadband communications and storage solutions. The Company’s diverse product portfolio includes switching, transceiver, communications controller, wireless, and storage solutions that power the entire communications infrastructure, including enterprise, metro, home, and storage networking. Headquarted in Sunnyvale, California, Marvell operates major manufacturing sites in the U.S., Asia, and the Middle East.

The Global Collaboration Challenge

As Marvell expanded its operations worldwide, the company’s IT department was faced with continuing pressure to deliver higher quality services so users could collaborate more easily between far-flung locations. Applications such as Windows file sharing and Web-based programs were painfully slow.

In addition, many key employees travel extensively to overseas offices, and require access to their files and data from headquarters’ servers. However, performance was abysmal for them due to low bandwidth, high latency connections.

According to Marvell CIO Walter Curd, the company had several key objectives, including:

• Faster Windows file share access

• Accelerated web applications

• Improved Exchange communications

• High performance VPN access

• Reduced WAN bandwidth consumption

“We were looking for a solution that optimized a wide variety of traffic in both directions,” said Curd. “In addition to file access for general office documents and marketing materials, we also use an HTTP-based Web application to exchange large engineering files and other technical data.”

Solution: Steelhead Appliances from Riverbed Technology

Curd deployed Steelhead appliances at four sites in the U.S., the Middle East, and Asia, and said the results have been “astounding.”

Immediately the company saw up to 60 times faster throughput for file sharing over Windows, while simultaneously saving about 80 percent of their WAN bandwidth. “Employees working at the Steelhead-deployed sites can share data, collaborate and access remote IT resources with essentially LAN-like performance,” noted Curd. “Employees who travel to distant offices can get to their home file shares and access files over Windows almost as easily as they can in their own offices.”

“Employees working at the Steelhead-deployed sites can share data, collaborate, and access remote IT resources with essentially LAN-like performance.”