INTERSPORT Optimizes Virtual Environment With Expand Networks

ROSELAND, New Jersey, July 5, 2011 -

Virtual Accelerators Protect Performance of SAP, Video
Conferencing and Critical Applications Across
Sporting House‘s International Sites

Expand Networks, the leader in optimizing WANs for branch
office consolidation and virtualization, announces that INTERSPORT
International has implemented its Virtual Accelerator (VACC) to
optimize SAP, video conferencing and other critical applications
between its headquarters in Switzerland and China. Benefitting from
a fully virtualized WAN optimization solution, INTERSPORT is
already experiencing 35% acceleration during the test phase, and
now plans to extend the solution to its Hong Kong office.

INTERSPORT International is the brand management and purchasing
company of the INTERSPORT Group, which has more than 5,300
associated retailers in 39 countries. The FMCG industry requires
them to constantly share and update information on brands,
suppliers, purchasing, and market rates. The performance of the WAN
is critical to this, however, the company experienced challenges in
network reliability and key application performance.  

Jicky Li, Network Manager, at INTERSPORT International,
comments, “Connectivity in China was not stable, and we were
experiencing inconsistent network performance for overseas
bandwidth. This impacted productivity, and slowed critical
communication between our international offices. This was
particularly prevalent with SAP, but also other data traffic such
as filesharing and email communications.”

INTERSPORT also highlighted its use of video conferencing for
internal communications, also used to communicate with large brands
such as Nike, as a key challenge for WAN performance. Evaluating
products from Juniper, Riverbed and F5, Expand was chosen for its
virtualised form factor and superior ability to accelerate and
prioritise all applications.

“Having made an investment into creating a wholly virtualised
environment at INTERSPORT, it was critical that any new software
must fully support VMWare in order to match the virtual network.
Expand was the only product to provide this,” commented Li.

Expand’s Virtual Accelerators live within, and accelerate out
of, virtual environments By leveraging the existing virtual
infrastructure at INTERSPORT, Expand’s WAN optimization technology
is deployed as a “virtual image”. Delivering the most
advanced levels of VMware integration, INTERSPORT can use VMware’s
suite of services to simply deploy, manage, maintain and assure the
Expand Accelerator Image within their existing virtualized
infrastructure.

“After we installed Expand, traffic was smooth and user
experience consistent,” Li explained. “The virtualised system in
China now runs like a LAN.  Expand has also made a difference
to senior execs, regularly travelling between international
offices. For them, connecting to the Exchange Server in our Swiss
HQ was difficult and slow, but with Expand’s compression
techniques, this pain point has been eliminated.”

INTERSPORT has completed the implementation of Expand Networks’
Virtual Accelerators between its Swiss HQ and China. Based on the
early success of the deployment, Li and his team are now planning
to extend the solution to its Hong Kong office later this year.

For further information contact: Andrew Parker/Jennifer Manning, Cohesive Communications, +44(0)1291-626200, expand at cohesive.uk.com