how application aware networks make the impossible possible

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The Cascade solution delivered a 519% ROI, an

average $5.1 million in savings per year, and

paid for itself in less than six months through the

following financial benefits:

Reduced network and application downtime

by 67%, restoring 73 hours of productive

time to each user and saving $26,057

annually per 100 users

Enhanced network visibility so organizationscould optimize their infrastructure through

server consolidation/virtualization and

bandwidth management, saving $12,047

per 100 users

Automated network management operations,

which reduced management operations time

by 12,000 hours or $5,497 per 100 users

Business Value Highlights

W H I T E P A P E R

R e a l i z i n g B u s i n e s s V a l u e a n d R O I w i t h A p p l i c a t i o n - A w a r eN e t w o r k P e r f o r m a n c e M a n a g e m e n t

Sponsored by: Riverbed Technology

Lucinda Borovick Randy Perry

Nancy Selig

July 2012

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y

Network traffic patterns have dramatically changed in the past decade from

predictable and point-to-point transaction-oriented activities to bandwidth-hungry,

always-on, many-to-many interactions.

Virtualization, cloud services, new Web-

centric application architectures, video and

unstructured data, and big data are the

newest entrants to the corporate network.

For many organizations, the only way to

ensure the stability of the network is to

overprovision network infrastructure,

standardize equipment, and attempt to

cobble together metrics from discrete

systems to plan for any upcoming changes.

Not only are these practices outdated and

insufficient to handle the next generation of

network workloads but such "stovepipe"

approaches are beginning to drive up costs,

threaten reliability, and reduce IT

responsiveness to business demands.

Unfortunately, very few organizations have

taken the holistic systems-based approach

to network management that is required to

deliver a reliable, secure, and cost-efficient

network experience that also delivers true

business benefits, such as risk management, competitive differentiation, and better

utilization of costly resources.

A coordinated approach across multiple datacenters and remote locations with

actionable metrics is the only way to ensure that the network team will be a trusted

partner in enabling an organization to achieve success in the new intelligent

economy. G l o b a l H e a d

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2 #235789 ©2012 IDC

M E E T I N G B U S I N E S S R E Q U I R E M E N T S W I T H

T H E N E T W O R K

A d d r e s s i n g R e a l - T i m e A p p l i c a t i o n P e r f o r m a n c e

a n d A v a i l a b i l i t y o v e r t h e N e t w o r k

The intelligent economy is here, and it is transforming IT's mandate to deliver

business value to the enterprise. Businesses recognize that to remain competitive,

they need to embrace a broader array of collaborative applications and create

ubiquitous access to these applications at the far reaches of the globe. Ensuring IT is

the "must have" resource in new revenue-generating opportunities is top of mind for

all IT professionals. Simultaneously, enterprise IT professionals face the never-ending

challenge of incorporating new technologies and cloud service delivery models into

their organizations' IT infrastructures. They face the challenge of ensuring application

performance for all users while mitigating increasing application business criticality

and growing application delivery complexity.

Knowledge of All Moving Parts

Underlying the changes that are happening in the intelligent economy is the

proliferation of a complex network of interactive systems, devices, and end points.

IDC predicts that the total number of mobile device connections worldwide will nearly

double from 2.5 billion in 2011 to 4.5 billion in 2015. Further complicating matters,

companies are increasingly implementing "bring your own device" policies, thus

introducing additional endpoints (e.g., smartphones, tablets, and laptops) into the

network environment.

In 2011, organizations around the world deployed 15,900PB of new disk storage

capacity for the storage of file-based data. By 2015, new storage capacity deployed

annually in datacenters is expected to reach 86,300PB.

Server virtualization technology has reached a pivotal milestone within datacenters

around the world. IDC believes that 2011 was the first year in which more application

instances (new and old) were deployed as virtual machines on a virtualized server

rather than on a dedicated physical server. The use of virtualization for application

servers will only accelerate after 2011, surpassing 75% of deployed applications

within a few years.

The complexities that these new opportunities place on the network are profound.

Some of the issues include losing control of end-user devices as well as virtual

servers "hidden" from network administrators. As a result, the enterprise network has

never had so many "blind spots." Further, traffic patterns are evolving over an ever-

expanding list of branches and datacenters — both public and private. These

complexities usher a whole host of "unknowns" into the corporate network, creating

risk to network uptime, information security, and/or regulatory compliance. IDC finds it

very common for an organization to simply not know the types of applications,

number of devices, or traffic sources on its enterprise network.



©2012 IDC #235789 3

IT Transformation

In recent years, IT transformations such as virtualization, datacenter consolidation,

and disaster recovery initiatives have been front and center for every CIO and IT

department. IT must be positioned as the enabler of organizational transformation to

support process improvements, new revenue-generating opportunities, and new ways

of doing business or risk being left behind. Underlying the plan for growth is themandate to achieve operational cost efficiencies involving virtualization and both

datacenter and application consolidation.

The use of virtualization technologies has decreased the number of servers to

manage while at the same time increased the utilization of the remaining physical

server and storage devices. Desktop virtualization is emerging as a way to achieve

savings by centralizing IT administration and management of distributed systems.

Enterprises are consolidating the number of datacenters they have to reduce the cost

of managing the complexity of IT devices spread across a global organization.

In addition to physical server consolidation, IT is on a quest for "one version of the

truth" for all enterprise information. Application consolidation enables a global

business to make coordinated intelligent decisions based on accurate real-time

business analytics from a centralized location.

Unfortunately, these transformation projects place a constant strain on the network

manager. The only way to achieve long-term success of these projects is to have the

appropriate tools to discover and map the interdependencies of the existing

environment. Lack of full understanding of the interdependency of just one server or

application can put an entire project at risk. IDC has spoken with a number of

companies that have had to redo server virtualization deployments because they had

not appropriately thought about the network implications of a virtualization project.

The need for visibility into IT change management projects is clear.

This lack of visibility and usable metrics carries over to the network's inability to adjust

on demand to changes in bandwidth needs. Organizations are caught between two

unacceptable choices. One option is to overprovision bandwidth to protect the

network from known or unexpected spikes in network traffic. Unfortunately, with this

option, the organization is paying for overprovisioning to keep network bandwidth

available but idle. The other option is to provision and pay for network services based

on the average workload and risk performance issues or, worse, network failure.

To keep pace with the demands of the intelligent economy, IT needs an intelligent

network. An organization that does not collect and utilize appropriate metrics to plan

capacity management will create a network that is outdated and unreliable.



4 #235789 ©2012 IDC

V i s i b i l i t y C r e a t e s t h e F o u n d a t i o n f o r a S e c u r e

R e l i a b l e N e t w o r k

One starting point is to extend visibility to the network by capturing packets in real time

on the network and implementing analytics capabilities that can identify issues on the

network before they become a greater problem. IDC believes visibility needs to extendto all the devices on the network. If an end user brings a laptop onto the corporate

network, IT needs to identify quickly whether that device poses a security risk.

Visibility in and of itself doesn't prevent the intrusion, but it does help IT identify the

problem quickly and hopefully contain the problem.

Furthermore, this visibility limits downtime and strengthens the reliability of the business-

critical network. It only takes one badly infected computer or one database error to create

performance problems for an entire organization. The ability to zero in on the problem is

the only way an organization can consistently deliver reliable network performance.

A Holistic Systems-Based Approach to Network Monitoring

Major IT developments such as virtualization, cloud initiatives, and the explosion of

content and big data each pose significant challenges from the perspective of WAN and

LAN performance, reliability, and flexibility. The real problem for most IT organizations is

that while all these developments are occurring concurrently, strategies for addressing

each typically occur in isolation. IDC is already hearing from a number of IT leaders that

such stovepiped approaches are beginning to drive up costs, threaten reliability, and

reduce IT responsiveness to business demands. A holistic systems-based approach is

the only way to appropriately understand all the ramifications on the network.

To illustrate, consider telecom costs, which are on average 15% of an IT budget.

These are ongoing monthly costs, and IDC has found that unlike in most other areas,

IT managers know exactly how much they pay a month in ongoing telecom costs.

However, they don't always know if they are using those scarce dollars as efficiently

as possible. As a result, the WAN is an investment that needs to be closely monitored

and managed. IT managers will get the most from this precious investment if they

have the ability to do the following:

Understand of traffic patterns; for example, the ability to understand "top talkers"

and "top listeners" gives IT more detailed information regarding the actual TCP

exchange going on in the network.

Understand all the components necessary to deliver an application — where are

they, how do they communicate with each other, where are their users located,

and how do they interact?

Benchmark performance to understand what is typical network traffic and what

are anomalous activities.

Enable efficient problem resolution by triggering alarms to act upon meaningful

changes in the network that could degrade or disrupt the business-critical network.



©2012 IDC #235789 5

Manage risk to stay ahead of possible compliance or regulatory requirements.

Customers report that with visibility they are confident they have not violated

regulations and will not incur fines.

Correlate poor WAN performance with application behavior.

Determine if service-level agreements are being met.

Context Is Critical to Improving Staff Productivity

The amount of change and complexity happening in IT can outpace the processes

and tools available to handle that change. In an ideal world, network managers are in

communication with business and application managers and understand upcoming

network requirements for a specific time of year or new business application hitting

the network. In these situations, the network administrator can take the time to make

sure that the appropriate network bandwidth and service levels are available. The

ability for a network administrator to plan and implement the appropriate service

levels needed in a given time frame is ideal and increases overall end-user and IT

productivity. Unfortunately, organizational and technical factors and the pace ofchange can inhibit a network manager's ability to get ahead of the problem. To have

minimal disruption during network moves, adds, or changes, network managers must

have the visibility to understand how specific users and events behave.

Finding the source of the problem quickly enables an organization to contain the

problem so that it doesn't disrupt the other applications or users. Easy-to-use

dashboards that clearly identify the source of the problem are a must-have. When an

end user calls the help desk and reports that the network is slow, any number of

factors can be contributing to network performance, including device failure, Internet

service problems, or new unexpected applications joining the network. Network

visibility and contextual tools usually reduce the number of calls and always reduce

the amount of time to address the situation.

Few would argue that the network is a shared resource that should be consistent

across all departments. And while all parts of an organization use the network, not

every department uses the network in the same way. Visibility into the network

enables the network manager to set fair-use network policies and to demonstrate and

track any deviation from policy. For example, if one department is running backup

procedures on the network causing end-user performance problems, network

managers should have the ability to identify and rectify this situation.

Most network managers will describe a reluctance to make any changes to network

settings or policies for fear of creating unknown problems. Network visibility not only

saves time but also provides the confidence needed to make critical changes to thenetwork.

IT organizations realize that to reduce costs and respond to business demands,

individual departments within the IT organization need to communicate and

coordinate projects. With network visibility, easy-to-read dashboards, automation, and

reporting tools, network managers can help application developers understand the

impact a particular project is having on the network. The network is constantly

changing, and no two networks are the same. As a result, very often an application



6 #235789 ©2012 IDC

can perform well on a local area network, but when it is moved into production in

support of remote and mobile users, the performance suffers. With network

performance monitoring and reporting, ideally, the network manager can help

the application developer architect the application for appropriate application

response time.

A holistic, context-based approach is the only way to avoid duplication of effort in the

IT department. In large global organizations, problems typically cut across multiple

teams. A centralized system eliminates the wasteful effort of each different team

working in its own silo to troubleshoot problems. Many customers report that hours,

days, and sometimes weeks of work can be avoided with a centralized, automated

network performance management solution.

A P P L I C A T I O N - A W AR E N E T W O R K

P E R F O R M A N C E M A N A G E M E N TW I T H C A S C A D E

To address the network manager's challenges outlined previously, RiverbedTechnology offers Cascade application-aware network performance management

that enables end-to-end visibility into the performance of critical business

applications. The Cascade product family is unique in its ability to combine flow data

and packet data into a single logical data store to give network managers a single,

holistic, integrated view of all network traffic data. Through the use of network

behavioral analysis, Cascade solutions can trend typical behavior and proactively

alert IT to issues in the environment, accelerate triage activity, and even spot

suspicious behavior worthy of security investigation.

The Cascade portfolio consists of the following:

Cascade Profiler. The centralized analysis and reporting console for the Cascadefamily, Cascade Profiler software correlates application-enriched network

information collected by Cascade Shark products, Cascade

Gateway appliances,

Cascade Sensor products, and Riverbed Steelhead products to provide centralized

monitoring, analysis, and reporting on network and application performance. The

Cascade Profiler console enables enterprises to proactively monitor and

troubleshoot applications and the network, automate discovery and dependency

mapping, and ensure a consistent and reliable end-user experience.

Cascade Gateway. This appliance collects flow data (NetFlow, sFlow, J-Flow,

IPFIX, and other popular flow statistics) from network devices, deduplicates

common information, and then forwards the data to the Cascade Profiler console

for analysis. Deploying Cascade Gateway appliances in conjunction with

Cascade Profiler software provides an easy and cost-effective way to gain end-

to-end visibility into the types and usage of traffic on the network.



©2012 IDC #235789 7

Cascade Shark. This solution delivers continuous packet capture and long-term

storage, enabling real-time and back-in-time forensic analysis and reporting of

network and security events. Cascade Shark solutions are deployed in locations

that require detailed and historical back-in-time analysis (i.e., datacenter,

headquarters, or important branch locations). Cascade Shark can be part of a

Cascade Profiler deployment or used as a standalone troubleshooting appliance.

Virtual Cascade Shark. This software version of Cascade Shark extends

Cascade functionality into the virtual environment by monitoring the performance

of inter-VM traffic on a VMware ESXi hypervisor.

Cascade Sensor. This product provides deep packet inspection to supplement

Flow-based data with Layer 7 application classification, end-user experience, and

performance metrics. A virtualized version, Cascade Sensor VE, is also available.

Cascade Pilot. This packet and transaction analysis console enables users to

quickly analyze multiterabyte packet recordings on remote Cascade Shark

appliances and Steelhead products without having to transfer large packet

captures files across the network.

In developing its solutions, Riverbed seeks to deliver the following customer benefits:

Ensure networks and applications run at peak performance — at all times.

Streamline troubleshooting to reduce the impact of service outages and slowdowns.

Reduce the risks and costs associated with high-profile initiatives such as

datacenter consolidation, disaster recovery, and cloud computing initiatives.

Identify bottlenecks where optimization would best accelerate the business.

Deliver network visibility and real-time metrics to proactively match network

services and bandwidth to application workloads.

Achieve cost-effective compliance by leveraging existing data sources and

minimizing the need for expensive hardware deployments.



8 #235789 ©2012 IDC

B U S I N E S S V A L U E O F C A S C A D E

S t u d y D e m o g r a p h i c s

In spring 2012, IDC interviewed eight organizations that had been using

Cascade products for 12–84 months. The organizations ranged from medium-sized

companies with as few as 500 employees to enterprises as large as 200,000

employees. The organizations interviewed are based in North America and include

representatives from the finance, consumer products, call center, energy, education,

sports, and technology market segments. The interviews were designed to elicit

quantifiable information as well as anecdotes so that IDC could interpret the full

impact of Cascade on the organization. Table 1 offers an aggregated profile of the

companies interviewed.

T A B L E 1

D e m o g r a p h i c s

Number of employees 52,000

Number of users 22,000

Industries Finance, consumer products, call center, mining,

education, sports, technology

Number of unique products used within the Cascade suite 3

Source: IDC, 2012

All of the organizations had deployed Cascade Profiler/Cascade Gateway or CascadeProfiler Express; two-thirds had also deployed Cascade Sensor, and half had

deployed Cascade Pilot. Cascade Shark and Cascade Sensor VE were also included,

but to a lesser extent. In addition, five of the eight organizations are using Riverbed

Steelhead WAN optimization products.

S e l e c t i n g R i v e r b e d C a s c a d e

The majority of customers knew they needed greater visibility into their networks

whether in response to problems, to be proactive or, in one case, to develop a private

cloud. They selected Cascade over its competition because it was a mature solution

that was easy to deploy and easy to use. As one customer stated:

Riverbed sent a team out to do it, but it was up and running in a half-

hour. They stayed for about an hour and gave us a once-over

[training] and then a really nice set of sample reports to work through.

No consultants. The user interface … a lot of people make the

comment that this is kind of like Apple. You can actually use the thing.



©2012 IDC #235789 9

F I N A N C I A L B E N E F I T S A N A L Y S I S

The organizations in the study selected Cascade to improve the transparency of their

networks and thus improve their ability to manage them. From the interviews, IDC

was able to measure the financial impact of implementing Cascade products. IDC

found that customers in this study achieved benefits in three areas: IT infrastructure

cost reduction, IT staff productivity improvement, and increased end-user productivity.The aggregate financial benefit in this study is $5.1 million per year or, as Figure 1

shows, $43,601 per 100 end users per year in the following areas:

Reduced IT infrastructure costs. Organizations in the study used Cascade to

optimize their bandwidth and networking resources, consolidate their server

environments, and expand their automation without adding labor resources,

annually saving $12,047 per 100 users.

Optimized IT staff productivity. Organizations were able to greatly enhance

their ability to proactively manage their networks and reduce some activities such

as security management by 80%. IT staffs devoted to networking management

are now more productive, saving $5,497 per 100 users.

Enhanced end-user productivity. The most significant benefit comes from

delivering critical business services with high reliability. End-user productivity

benefited from reduced service disruptions and quicker response, reducing

downtime by 67% and saving $26,057 per 100 users.

F I G U R E 1

A v e r a ge A n n u a l B e n e f i t s o f R i v e r b e d C a s c a de ( p e r 1 0 0 U se r s )

Source: IDC, 2012

Cost reduction$12,047

IT staff

productivity$5,497

Downtime/userproductivity

$26,057

Total = $43,601



10 #235789 ©2012 IDC

C o s t R e d u c t i o n

As a result of deploying Cascade, customers in this study have lowered their annual

IT expenses by an average of $12,047 per 100 users (see Figure 2). These savings

stem from three key areas:

Consolidation of servers and related storage and power/facilities

Networking equipment and bandwidth savings

Avoiding hiring additional IT staff

F I G U R E 2

A v e r a ge A n n u a l Co s t R e du c t i o n S av i n g s ( p e r 1 0 0 U s e r s )

Source: IDC, 2012

$5,476

$2,609

$2,525

$964

$258$215

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

StoragePower

Networking equipment

Bandwidth

FTE labor avoidance

Servers

Total = $12,047



©2012 IDC #235789 11

Optimizing Server and Datacenter Consolidation

Half of the customers in the study had implemented server consolidation and

virtualization or cloud initiatives and credited Cascade with optimizing the process. On

average, these companies had consolidated their server environments by 63% and

estimated that Cascade was responsible for 15–20% of that benefit through better

management of bandwidth and the network, which increased server utilization,resulting in further consolidation opportunities. As one customer stated:

Greater visibility into virtual environments helps us size our virtual

server farm. It helps us to buy less, reducing capex by looking at

data flows between virtual servers. … Let's put these 5 applications

over onto this physical server, and virtualize them, and move this

big app over there, and we do not have to add another 10 blades. It

helps us re-architect our compute engine, and that helps us delay

increases to the server farm.

Bandwidth and Networking Savings

Steelhead WAN optimization appliances deliver most of the bandwidth optimizationthese customers experience. What Cascade does is provide visibility so that

Steelhead and other WAN optimization products can be directed by the IT staff to

network locations or to traffic types that are disadvantaged. One customer likened

Cascade to providing a "target of opportunity to further reduce bandwidth." Another

customer related how Cascade revealed that 50% of its backbone was devoted to

replication. It was able to evaluate whether to reduce or move the load and "fine-tune

the QoS" to make sure that the user traffic received preferential treatment.

Avoiding Hiring Additional IT Staff

Every organization in the study reported experiencing IT staff avoidance ranging from as

little as 1% to as much as 30%; the average was 10%. Staff avoidance was a result of

Cascade reducing the amount of overhead previously required to troubleshoot and

resolve network problems in conjunction with server consolidation or other initiatives. So

while these organizations were continuing to grow their networks in response to business

demands, they did not have to grow their IT staffs correspondingly because they were

able to create a more efficient network management operation.

O p t i m i z e d I T S t a f f P r o d u c t i v i t y

Most of the participants in the study selected Cascade because they knew they

needed greater visibility into their network operations. Since deploying Cascade, IT

staffs have been able to identify and resolve network and application problems more

efficiently because they can see across the entire network to accurately locate andisolate the root cause of problems. As one customer stated:

I'll give you an example that I told them [Riverbed] when we first put

in the demo unit that we had for 30 days. We'd had a problem in one

of our buildings, where it had dragged on two weeks with the network

guy trying to solve it, and the building was only marginally functional.

In less than about 20 minutes of pointing Riverbed [Cascade] at it,

we were able to isolate the fact that there were something like 8 or 9



12 #235789 ©2012 IDC

badly infected computers that were totally disrupting the operation of

the network … isolate what ports they were on, shut those network

ports down, and boom, the building came right up.

Beyond identifying problems and managing incidents, Cascade enables IT staff across

the entire operation to benefit as they integrate and automate other network

management functions: general network analysis, pushing out network changes, networkaudit/data collection/inventory management, correlation of network change to network

performance/health, maintaining consistency/standards/policies, network monitoring, and

deployment (see Figure 3). Some critical functions, like network change detection, were

not done prior to deploying Cascade because the IT staff felt the task was either too

difficult or not cost efficient. Because the network is so critical to the operations across

the organization, server, storage, and even application management are enhanced.

F I G U R E 3

I T S t a f f P r o d u c t i v i t y : A n n u a l A d m i n S a v i n g s ( I T S t a f f F T E s )

Source: IDC, 2012

1.83

1.59

0.56

0.51

0.25

0.25

0.25

0.100.10

0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

F T E s

Correlation of networkchange to networkperformance/health

Deployment tasks

Maintainingconsistency/standards/policies

Network monitoring

Managing incidents

Network audit/datacollection/inventorymanagement

Pushing out networkchanges

General network analysis

Network change detection

Total FTEs = 5.44



©2012 IDC #235789 13

U s e r P r o d u c t i v i t y

As businesses become more automated to drive efficiency and agility, CIOs are

concerned that their networks and systems cannot deliver the high reliability that

critical business applications require.

Cascade enables IT to manage the performance of applications with visibility into the

infrastructure supporting delivery. This reduces the threats of disruption from security

threats, hardware overload, and network congestion. Regarding downtime, one

customer stated:

So Riverbed helped on probably two big dimensions. We solved a

lot of the big problems with our cloud. We've gone from 160

outages to north of six-nines availability. We now have massive

data movement in the network. So we used the Riverbed's

[Steelhead] for data acceleration, and we use Cascade to see

what's happening.

Concerning security, one customer stated:

It's about being surgical. You never know the answer of how many.

We've gone from a lot to none. I only get 1–2 [events] per year now.

Before it was like 1–2 [events] a day easily. And then you get what I

call a screamer. So then bots create traffic on your network, and

they screw up your network. Depending on how big the infestation

got … in a typical day, maybe 10–15 people might be involved in

dealing with this kind of thing. You have to find the thing and then

you have to fight the bots … finding it is always the hard part, and

that is where Cascade helps.

On average, Cascade customers in the study were able to reduce their lost user

productivity by 67%, restoring 73 hours of annual productivity to each end user (see

Table 2).

T A B L E 2

U s e r P r o d u c t i v i t y S a v i n g s

Before (Hours) After (Hours) Improvement (%)

Security 5.77 1.90 67

Help desk 6.95 0.53 92

Downtime 96.85 34.12 65

Total 109.57 36.55 67

Source: IDC, 2012



14 #235789 ©2012 IDC

B u s i n e s s B e n e f i t s

Although many of the companies in the study were dependent on the reliable

operations of their networks, they did not relate any specific value or revenue loss

associated with downtime. Only one company quoted an average revenue loss of

$30,000 per hour. Where they all did feel there was business benefit was in the wayCascade helped them plan for growth and institute rational plans for rolling out new

applications and infrastructure in support of new business activities.

T h e V a l u e o f a n I n t e g r a t e d A p p r o a c h

Five of eight organizations in the study are using Cascade to also leverage their

investment in Steelhead. Cascade senses all of the traffic on the OSI layers and

reports utilization for all of the Steelhead appliances. IT can use the Cascade data

flows to fine-tune bandwidth optimization. In addition to the benefits presented for

Cascade, those companies experienced the following additional benefits:

Infrastructure. Much higher benefits in bandwidth and storage savings

IT productivity. Additional reduction in help desk operations due to high

bandwidth availability

User productivity. Additional help desk and user downtime savings

Figure 4 presents the outcome of the ROI analysis in a graphical form.

F I G U R E 4

C a s h F l o w A n a l y s i s

Source: IDC, 2012

$(10,771)$(1,784) $(1,784) $(1,784)

$30,427

$43,599 $44,035

$17,872

$59,687

$101,939

-20,000

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

80,000

100,000

120,000

0 1 2 3

$

(Year)

Investment Benef it Cumulative cash f low



©2012 IDC #235789 15

The total investment included the average total costs to purchase and deploy

Cascade as well as annual fees. Annual benefits include infrastructure savings,

reduced IT labor support, added income, and productivity savings. Organizations in

this study made an initial investment of $10,771 per 100 users, including the

purchase and implementation costs, consulting services, and IT labor required to

deploy and train. As a result of the initial and subsequent investments, the

organizations realized average annual benefits of $39,354 per 100 users and a

cumulative three-year savings of $102,000 per 100 users.

R O I A N A L Y S I S

IDC uses a discounted cash flow methodology to calculate the return on investment

(ROI) and payback period. ROI is the ratio of the net present value (NPV) and

discounted investment. The payback period is the point at which cumulative benefits

equal the initial investment.

Table 3 presents IDC's ROI analysis for the deployment of Riverbed Cascade to help

manage network and application operations. This ROI analysis constitutes a three-year view of the financial impact of Riverbed Cascade on a "per 100 users" basis.

The three-year ROI analysis shows that on average, the organizations in this study

spent $15,056 per 100 users on Cascade and received $93,267 per 100 users in

benefits for an NPV of $78,212. The companies saw a payback period of six months

(after deployment) and an ROI of 519%.

T A B L E 3

T h r e e - Y e a r R O I A n a l y s i s ( p e r 1 0 0 U s e r s )

Benefit (discounted) $93,267

Investment (discounted) $15,056

Net present value (NPV) $78,212

Return on investment (ROI) 519%

Payback (months) 5.1

Discount rate 12%

Source: IDC, 2012



16 #235789 ©2012 IDC

C H A L L E N G E S / O P P O R T U N I T I E S

C h a l l e n g e s

Riverbed does face a couple of market challenges. First, many IT departments are

hesitant to invest in network tools because they take away money that would

otherwise be allocated to bandwidth. Riverbed needs to continue to drive home the

message that investing in tools like Cascade will improve bandwidth and create

savings elsewhere across the network and the business. Second, Riverbed needs to

demonstrate that Cascade can deliver business value not only in today's current

network environment but also as organizations migrate to converged systems in the

datacenter and cloud services.

O p p o r t u n i t i e s

Riverbed has a wealth of opportunities ahead to help network managers deliver the

network attributes that will be essential in creating an environment where the network

is not just connecting the business but a strategic resource to facilitate businessobjectives. IDC has spoken with countless customers that are stymied by network

"unknowns." The Cascade solution has the ability to uncover blind spots quickly,

paving the way for a business-ready network. It is imperative that Cascade solutions

focus on the needs of the network manager, whose objective is to reduce network

costs, improve staff effectiveness, increase network resiliency, and boost network

responsiveness. As such, IDC believes that Riverbed opportunities extend to new

emerging network traffic patterns in an era where virtualization and cloud services are

in high demand.

C O N C L U S I O N

Over the past five years, IT transformation projects such as datacenter consolidation

and virtualization have helped increase IT efficiency and agility. The complexities of

network traffic patterns and the proliferation of network endpoints mean that to meet

the continued demand of increasing efficiency, network managers need a new

approach to deliver the business-ready network.

The ability of Cascade to give IT and network managers the power to quickly and

holistically view the network is demonstrating a clear return on investment. In

particular, the proficiency of the Cascade solution to facilitate high-profile revenue-

generating projects and manage risk while furthering network efficiencies is of great

value. In addition, bringing strategic clarity to WAN optimization projects will continue

to drive Cascade deployments. IDC believes a holistic systems-based approach tonetwork visibility is required to deliver a reliable, secure, and cost-efficient network

experience.



©2012 IDC #235789 17

A P P E N D I X

IDC utilized its standard ROI methodology for this project. This methodology is based

on gathering data from current users of the technology as the foundation for the

model. Based on these interviews, IDC performs a three-step process to calculate the

ROI and payback period:

1. Measure the savings from reduced IT costs (staff, hardware, software,

maintenance, and IT support), increased user productivity, and improved

revenue over the term of the deployment.

2. Ascertain the investment made in deploying the solution and the associated

training and support costs.

3. Project the costs and savings over a three-year period and calculate the ROI and

payback for the deployed solution.

IDC uses the net present value of the savings and increased revenue over three

years in calculating the ROI and payback period for the deployment. The NPV of thesavings is determined by subtracting the amount that would have been earned by

investing the original sum in an instrument yielding a 12% return (to allow for the

missed opportunity cost that could have been realized using that capital).

IDC bases the payback period and ROI calculations on a number of assumptions,

which are summarized as follows:

Time values are multiplied by burdened salary (salary + 28% for benefits and

overhead) to quantify efficiency and manager productivity savings.

Downtime values are a product of the number of hours of downtime multiplied by

the number of users affected.

The impact of unplanned downtime is quantified in terms of impaired end-user

productivity and lost revenue.

Lost productivity is a product of downtime multiplied by burdened salary.

Lost revenue is a product of downtime multiplied by the average revenue

generated per hour.

The net present value of the three-year savings is calculated by subtracting the

amount that would have been realized by investing the original sum in an

instrument yielding a 12% return to allow for the missed opportunity cost. This

accounts for both the assumed cost of money and the assumed rate of return.

Because every hour of downtime does not equate to a lost hour of productivity or

revenue generation, IDC attributes only a fraction of the result to savings. As part of

our assessment, we asked each company what fraction of downtime hours to use in

calculating productivity savings and the reduction in lost revenue. IDC then taxes the

revenue at that rate.



18 #235789 ©2012 IDC

Further, because IT solutions require a deployment period, the full benefits of the

solution are not available during deployment. To capture this reality, IDC prorates the

benefits on a monthly basis and then subtracts the deployment time from the first-

year savings.

C o p y r i g h t N o t i c e

External Publication of IDC Information and Data — Any IDC information that is to be

used in advertising, press releases, or promotional materials requires prior written

approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the

proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right to

deny approval of external usage for any reason.

Copyright 2012 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden.



CASE STUDY

Boston CollegeRiverbed Cascade Enables Boston College to Stay Ahead of

Growing Network Complexity

Founded in 1863 and located in Newton, Massachusetts, Boston College is one of the oldest Jesuit,

Catholic universities in the United States. Boston College confers more than 4,000 degrees annually

in more than 50 fields of study through nine schools and colleges, and has experienced tremendous

growth in recent years, including a 75 percent increase in undergraduate applications over the

past decade.

Boston College has implemented a three-tier Gigabit Ethernet network accommodating approxi-

mately 15,000 students, faculty, and staff across three physical campuses within a three mile radius.

Users are accustomed to a very reliable network. The Boston College data center is located in the

former St. Clement’s Chapel, featuring 16 stained-glass windows.

The Challenge: Limited Network Visibility

In recent years Boston College has experienced rapid growth in data center network complexity.

This complexity was driven by the need to provide a high level of fault tolerance to new,

multi-tiered applications that had large bandwidth requirements. The final design proved to be

robust enough to support the University’s needs, but it introduced an increased level of complexity

to troubleshooting.

One example of this type of application was a three-tiered Web-based portal consisting of front-

end Web servers, mid-tiered application servers and backend database servers. For additional fault

tolerance, this application was also deployed behind application load-balancer appliances.

As application complexity and network demand were growing, the network team felt it was impor-

tant to gain more visibility into how applications were performing in order to best serve users’

needs. “We were reaching a tipping point with the complexity of some of our applications, where

we felt we didn’t have a good handle on what was normal application performance and what was

an outlier,” says Chris O’Brien, Network Systems Engineer. “Understanding our network traffic was

what started the discussion around a network and application visibility solution.”

When the team was unable to produce sufficient performance metrics about their centralized emai

system during an outage due to their lack of tools capable of monitoring the volume of traffic, the

need for enhanced visibility became clear. It became obvious that Boston College would benefit

from a full layer 4-7 performance metrics in the data center and throughout the network, plus

dependency maps that show how multi-tiered applications are architected and how network traffic

is truly flowing. This enhanced visibility would reduce the MTTR of current network issues and help

plan for future growth.

The Solution: Riverbed Cascade

In the past, the network team used a combination of packet capture and older network manage-

ment tools to troubleshoot problems. However, that was a reactive approach, requiring them to

go to the building where the problem happened, set up packet capture, wait for the problem to

happen again, and then look for possible problems in the capture file. This was not only a tedious

process that required a great deal of setup to begin looking into a reported problem, but it could

also be fruitless if the problem couldn’t be regularly reproduced.

IN BRIEF

Industry»» Education

Challenges»» Rapid growth in network traffic»» Increasing application complexity»» Limited network visibility»» Time-consuming troubleshooting process

Solution

»» Riverbed Cascade appliance in the datacenter

Benefits»» Reduced MTTR for network issues and

higher network uptime»» Better network and application perfor-

mance management»» Detailed performance metrics and easy

reporting



2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011

About Riverbed

Riverbed Technology is the IT performance

company. The Riverbed family of wide area

network (WAN) optimization solutionsliberates businesses from common IT

constraints by increasing application

performance, enabling consolidation, and

providing enterprise-wide network and

application visibility – all while eliminating

the need to increase bandwidth, storage

or servers. Thousands of companies with

distributed operations use Riverbed to make

their IT infrastructure faster, less expensive

and more responsive. Additional information

about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available

at www.riverbed.com.

Riverbed Technology

199 Fremont Street

San Francisco, CA 94105Tel: +1 415 247 8800

Fax: +1 415 247 8801

www.riverbed.com

Riverbed Technology Pte. Ltd.

391A Orchard Road #22-06/10

Ngee Ann City Tower A

Singapore 238873

Tel: +65 6508-7400

Riverbed Technology Ltd.

Farley Hall, London Road

BinfieldBracknell

Berks RG42 4EU

Tel: +44 (0) 1344 401900

Riverbed Technology K.K.

Shiba-Koen Plaza Building 9

3-6-9, Shiba, Minato-ku

Tokyo, Japan 105-0014

Tel: +81 3 5419 1990

©2011 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved.

Riverbed and any Riverbed product o r service name ologo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed

Technology. All other trademarks used herein belong

to their respective owners. The trademarks and logos

displayed herein may not be used without the prior

written consent of Riverbed Technology or theirrespective owners.

CS-BC012811

The world of network management tools was changing in favor of graphical, easy-to-use tools that

aggregate large amounts of information at a high level and understand the relationship between

network and servers. After a bakeoff of competing product solutions, and a successful proof of

concept trial, Boston College selected Riverbed Cascade as its standard network and applicationvisibility tool.

While evaluating Cascade, O’Brien found its ease of implementation to be a major differentiator.

“Cascade was easy to get up and going. It came online quickly and started collecting usable data.

Cascade is very user friendly and has an intuitive interface.” The team was impressed by other

Cascade capabilities, including the baselining of normal behavior, and the search capability, which

O’Brien describes as ‘very advanced’.

Benefits: Global Visibility and Accelerated Troubleshooting

Boston College now has Cascade appliances located in the data center collecting flow data from all

distribution routers and aggregating that with layer 7 data from data center traffic. This provides

visibility into traffic from over 100 buildings across three campuses to the data center and to the

Internet. Network health reports are automatically generated and sent daily to IT executives, and

performance alerts are sent to the network team.Cascade provides benefits across several dimensions:

• Reduced MTTR for network connectivity issues

• Increased network uptime

• Better network and application performance management

• Detailed performance metrics for the data center and throughout the network

• Less dependency on packet capture as a troubleshooting tool

• Ease of reporting and interpreting data output

• Powerful search capabilities for network information

Cascade has proven itself many times to be an excellent troubleshooting tool. For example:• During a troubleshooting session with an offsite Web application vendor, the Boston College

team was able to pinpoint the problem in minutes, rather than hours as would have been the

case with alternative approaches.

• When wireless access points were incorrectly applying EF (Expedite Forwarding) QoS tags to non-

voice traffic, potentially degrading the quality of VOIP calls, Cascade was the first product that

discovered the problem.

• When the campus police called to report that the network was down, Cascade correctly identi-

fied the problem as an application rather than a network problem.

“Cascade is the first place we go when we get a call from a user,” says Ann Murphy (Associate

Director, Network Systems) / Joe Harrington (Director, Network Services). “We now have a much

more effective network management process, and can quickly determine where a problem is in the

network and what applications or services are being impacted by it Our goal is to be in an increas-ingly proactive mode where we know about network and application problems before the user

reports them.”

CASE STUDY: Boston College

how application aware networks make the impossible possible

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