Riverbed Steelhead WAN optimization?

[Sheri_in_CA]

We are looking at the reality of upgrading our current servers (and creating a CAD specific server). Currently, we have AutoCAD MEP 2010 loaded on our individual machines, but we work thru the server on our project CAD files.We have 3 CAD stations here in CA and 1 in AZ. Currently, we replicate servers in both locations, and it has been a huge issue when we try to collarborate on MEP projects from both offices.

We have been shown some preliminary sales information on Riverbed Steelhead WAN optimization appliance. It describes a bandwidth utilization reduction, and faster AutoCAD 2010 network operations - sounds REALLY nice! Essentially what is planned is that the Riverbed Steelhead appliance in AZ will connect directly to our CAD server here - no more replication nightmares, and we should even "see" when one of us has a file open.

However, I need more ROI info to present. What I am looking for is some real world feedback from AEC, Revit or MEP firms using this product. Pros and cons? Issues during installation, or things to consider?

Any feedback I can get will be immensely helpful!

Thanks!

[kmorin]

Riverbed may have changed the way it's solution works now, but when I was looking at them back in 2008 you had to have an appliance at each edge of your LAN meaning you have to have one appliance (size based on number of users) in AZ and another appliance in CA for the packet optimization to work.

Were you aware of this? If not, then your initial price just doubled.

[Graeme Padgham]

Hi,
We use Riverbed to great effect (for Most AutoCAD versions and Revit (and all file server access actually)
We have about 10 offices all accessing data from a remote Data Centre, all with varying speed links (from 100meg to 8 Meg).
And yes you would have to have Riverbed Cache servers on each side of the Lan for optimization to work. (We have one in our Datacentre working with all our servers, and one in each office)

We couldnt use this network model without Riverbed.

[Hammer.John.J]

we are using drobo's with parallel internet connections to dedicate a line to WAFS, this eliminates a lot of collisions and band width issues also... we had to bring in a consultant to do this though. this is all being controlled through our sonic walls

we had riverbeds come in, it was impressive, but it requires a trigger where as the system we are using is an automated process that duplicates anything in "x" folder at both office locations....

[david_peterson]

We used to try doing things live between offices. It ended up being way to slow. So we've gone away from that and just have people remote desktop in to the office where that project is being stored (ie the one doing most of the work).
We also are working with a partner on another very large project. At the end of everyday (say around midnight) we set up a script to make a sync'd copy to our ftp site. We have our partners do the same. At the same time we have a script that reads the ftp site for changes which then scyn's a copy back to our network. When we start to get close to a deadline we can adjust the timing so say every 15min it will start the process. Then all you need to do is reload and you're up to date.

[gary.mcauliffe443343]

These boxes work very well. We used a pair to connect 4 Las Vegas CADD stations to the file servers in Dallas over a 10 mb virtual wan circuit. Before we had them it was impossible to get work done. After, it was like being on the local LAN in Dallas. Riverbed does things no one else can do - it's not just synchronizing files or just "zipping " on the fly - it's really just moving the PARTS of the files that change - not the whole file.

We tried the local sync thing with mirrored storage and it was not satisfactory.

[rkmcswain]

Assuming the rest of your network (LAN/WAN) is in good shape, you can't go wrong with the Riverbeds.

We have them in each office and could not work on drawings on remote servers without them.
With them, the difference between working on a local server and a remote one is almost not detectable.

[Ken Cover]

Our company has been looking into Riverbed as well. We are looking for input (good and bad) regarding larger files.

I have not heard any negative comments which is good, but you know that some people have had issues.

Thanks for everyone's input!