John Lewis Uses Redline Networks to Accelerate Applications and Reduce Bandwidth Costs
One of UK's Leading Retail Companies Improves Customer Service Application Performance and Availability
CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 7, 2004--
John Lewis Partnership, one of the United Kingdom's leading retail groups, today announced that it is using the Redline Networks T/X enterprise application processor to improve the performance and availability of its customer service applications. The product is being used to decrease connection times and increase performance between the company's shops and head office and to reduce bandwidth costs by GBP30,000 (more than $50,000) per year.
John Lewis Partnership found that its existing network infrastructure was having problems coping with the rising levels of demand for its customer service applications. With new functionality being added, the company was looking for a solution to address performance of their Web-based support applications. The company looked at appliance-based compression solutions from Packeteer and XCache, as well as server-based software alternatives. But Redline was considered the best solution because of its ease of integration and unique platform approach, the quality of customer service from Redline's partner, Azzurri Networks, and the company's own European customer support team.
Redline enterprise application processors were put between the existing load balancing and data center equipment, which included Apache Web servers. Mark Denyer, network technical manager at John Lewis, said, "In terms of implementation, this was very quick and straightforward. Once the Redline systems were turned on, we saw an immediate and significant reduction in WAN traffic and faster response times."
John Lewis Partnership said that with Redline's enterprise application processors they are saving more than $50,000 per year in bandwidth costs. "Our bandwidth usage graphs show a clear reduction in bandwidth usage following the Redline implementation," said Denyer. "As we have rolled this out to all our branches, many users have commented on the performance improvements." John Lewis Partnership also claims that the Redline appliance is saving about three gigabytes of bandwidth per day.
Paul Gracie, EMEA sales director at Redline Networks, said, "The need within businesses to gain optimum performance from Web-based applications cannot be overemphasized. As enterprise application vendors put more of their products into a browser environment, the challenge for the IT departments of user organizations and systems integrators is to ensure that the network infrastructure can cope with the new demands being placed on it by these applications. John Lewis Partnership's deployment proves that Redline Networks delivers a superior ROI in comparison to WAN bandwidth upgrade and other competing approaches."
About The John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership is one of the best-known names in British retailing. Established in 1864, the company has a unique 'partnership' model that treats all its employees as stakeholders in the business and able to share in its profits. The company operates in a number of sectors but most notably through John Lewis department stores and Waitrose, the well known supermarket chain. In 2003/2004 the John Lewis Partnership had a total turnover of over GBP5.1 billion, which comprised sales in John Lewis stores of GBP2.4 billion and GBP2.7 billion from Waitrose.
About Redline Networks
Redline Networks designs and manufactures network appliances that maximize the performance, flexibility and scalability of Web-enabled enterprise data centers. The company's family of E/X enterprise application processors, deployed at corporate data centers, and T/X Web I/O processors, used by Web sites, enable users to control and customize any HTTP-based environment while reducing infrastructure cost and complexity. Redline is a privately-held company based in Campbell, Calif. For more information on Redline and its products, visit http://www.RedlineNetworks.com.
Contacts
Redline Networks, Inc.
Greg Ness, 408-369-3831
gness@redlinenetworks.com
or
Ulevich & Orrange, Inc.
Janis Ulevich, 650-329-1590
ulevich@u-o.com
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