Large accounting firms are often comprised of many regional offices, which are sometimes independently-run subsidiaries. In today's climate, managing and controlling information is critical, which often means keeping data secure in data centers under lock and key. That's very difficult to do when your infrastructure is distributed among many offices, and when file servers contain potentially confidential information that may or may not be completely backed up.

By deploying Riverbed WAN optimization solutions, accounting firms can do a number of important things:

• Centralize remote office backup. Key client data can be centralized to regional hubs either by physically centralizing remote office servers, or by performing backup operations over the WAN so that it is no longer backed up in each office.
• Improve collaboration. When accountants do financial analysis, the spreadsheets involved may include many linked sub-files. These collections of files need to be worked on by members of the team who may be located in other sites. Sharing those spreadsheets and other files quickly and efficiently is critical.
• Optimize WAN Usage. Most regional offices in accounting firms are connected by low bandwidth WAN links which limits performance for remote sites, requires deployment of local infrastructure that is complex and expensive to manage, and inhibits the rollout of new and important applications like VOIP. By deploying Steelhead appliances, you can typically remove 60% to 95% of your current WAN traffic.

A Global Accounting Firm

One global accounting firm is deploying Steelhead appliances in their core network to enable them to save considerable WAN bandwidth. The regional country-based subsidiaries can then deploy a Steelhead appliance in their local headquarters and interconnect easily with the core corporate network, which brings their office into much closer contact with the home office. Not only do they get far higher performance for file sharing and other key applications, but they have removed more than two thirds of their WAN traffic.