Expand Networks Wins Eric Mower and Associates and Solves WAN-Related Inter-Office Collaboration Challenges

Leading Marketing Communications Agency Selects Expand Over Riverbed and SilverPeak

Expand Networks, www.expand.com, a leading provider of application acceleration solutions over the Wide Area Network (WAN), today announced that the company’s WAN Optimization technology has addressed Eric Mower and Associates’ (EMA) WAN-related Inter-Office collaboration challenges by bringing users into virtual proximity of applications. Remote users are now able to collaborate across the WAN in real-time, increasing efficiency throughout the company. In addition, by optimizing applications and IT investments, Expand has helped EMA to cost-effectively manage the distributed IT infrastructure and support the overall networking and communications needs of its remote offices and workers. Expand was chosen over both Riverbed and SilverPeak based on its superior technology and excellent customer service.

Ranked among the top 20 independent agencies in the country, and consistently making the “Top 100” lists of ADWEEK and other publications, EMA is a marketing communications agency specializing in public relations, public affairs, consumer advertising, brand promotion and business-to-business marketing. As a growing company with new offices regularly opening around the United States, EMA experienced communication challenges related to the WAN. These included delays in sharing large files, and in backing up data from remote offices, which was impacting user and the overall company productivity. Collaboration in real-time was often not possible and simple access to files could prove very time consuming for remote workers.

As well as needing to speed up its backup times and overall remote access to files, EMA needed a more cost effective way to handle voice communications for its offices. However, until the company deployed Expand Networks technology to address its WAN communications problems, EMA did not want to proceed with its Voice over IP (VoIP) initiative.

“Using Expand Networks has enabled more aggressive replication schedules, and helped to avoid unnecessary network upgrades and costly server migrations,” said Bruce Wodka, Network Manager and Senior IT Administrator for EMA. “Now, our dispersed teams look like one tightly integrated unit to clients. Expand Networks helps us collaborate seamlessly and get the most return from our remote offices.”

By accelerating Double-Take software applications, used for backup and disaster recovery, by over 75%, replication sessions that used to take thirteen hours now run in under four hours. By optimizing the WAN, Expand Networks has provided the foundation for EMA to cost effectively support its voice communications requirements over the same WAN infrastructure. All of this is made possible by Expand Networks’ full range of integrated features, including advanced caching and compression techniques and Layer 7 Quality of Service (QoS), which mitigate bandwidth and latency issues and prioritize traffic on the network.

“Our industry is increasingly competitive,” continued Wodka. “With Expand, we are getting the best performance from our applications and return from our IT investments, and that in turn has given us the network we need to compete with the largest agencies.”

“WAN communication and application performance challenges continue to increase as workforces become more and more globally dispersed,” said Andrew W. Mullen, Vice President, Sales, Americas, Expand Networks. “At the same time, in the current economy, when any sort of IT investments must be justified with a very quick return-on-investment, Expand Networks’s WAN Optimization technology maximizes user productivity and renews ROI on the existing infrastructure. By consistently providing superior end user experiences, Expand ensures that the business runs smoothly and does not lose revenue through network and user productivity challenges.”

Contacts

FusionPR – US
Emilio Dabul, 732-910-8795
emilio.dabul {at} fusionpr(.)com
or
Cohesive Communications – EMEA
David Rowlands / Jennifer Manning
+44 (0) 1291 626200
expand {at} cohesive.uk(.)com
or
Kinetics – APAC
Brooke Radich, +61 (0) 2 9212 3848
expand {at} kinetics.com(.)au