Teneo delivers tenfold improvement in application performance for Strategic Thought

Published on: 11 September 2008

Teneo, a leading infrastructure optimisation specialist, has installed Riverbed Steelhead appliances both in the UK and USA to accelerate delivery of desktop applications for risk management software specialist Strategic Thought.

Strategic Thought delivers software and integration services, specialising in the development of risk management software. It is best known as the owner, developer and distributor of Active Risk Manager (ARM), the market-leading risk management software solution with a customer base including some of the world's largest organisations. The company employs 85 staff in total, with 75 people based in its London headquarters and 10 people in Washington DC.

All of the company’s servers are located in London, with the Washington office reliant on a virtual private network (VPN) for access to the London office’s network. Strategic Thought employees make extensive use of Microsoft Office products such as Outlook and Word. Accessing these applications from the Washington office was slow, with staff experiencing frustration due to the speed and electing to save files locally which caused confusion in terms of document version control.

Various solutions were considered by Strategic Thought, including installing servers in Washington, but the equipment cost was prohibitive plus there would be additional costs of recruiting an individual to provide IT support. Application performance management solutions from vendors such as Riverbed looked attractive as they would benefit both offices and could be easily extended to new offices.

Riverbed referred Strategic Thought to Teneo, who offered to conduct a trial of Riverbed Steelhead appliances. With Teneo having offices in the UK and the USA, it arranged for installations at both Strategic Thought offices using Teneo engineers.

David Ellis, chief information officer, Strategic Thought Group, commented:
“With Teneo operating in both countries, the implementation was very smooth. The trial was very successful and we bought both appliances. Application performance has significantly improved. For example, to open a PowerPoint file from the US office previously took 50 seconds, now it takes just 5 seconds. User frustration has been resolved and our employees are now sharing data more effectively by using the central server. This Teneo solution has been low cost, easy to maintain and simple to install – we are extremely happy with the result.”

James Hall, marketing director, Teneo, commented:
“Application performance is critical to any organisation, it is so frustrating for employees to be waiting for nearly a minute every time they access applications such as Microsoft Office. Strategic Thought knew that replicating servers and applications at their Washington office was not the answer, being too cost prohibitive and failing to address the core issue of application performance. We are delighted to be able to work with Strategic Thought to install a solution that really delivers.”