Auto parts maker says network traffic device eases global business
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 10/1/2004 12:00:00 AM
When Fisher & Co., St. Claire Shores, Mich., opened its first overseas product design office in Sweden, its engineers found it was taking an hour or more to download parts drawings via an Internet connection to the Fisher home office.
"The drawings are stored in Pro/INTRALINK [an engineering data & collaboration package from PTC], which requires the files to be loaded to a user's desktop before they can do anything with it," explains Jamie McNeil, network administrator at Fisher & Co., which makes seat-back recliners for the auto industry.
In searching for a solution, McNeil discovered what he describes as a unique product from a start-up company called Riverbed Technology. The product, which Riverbed calls a Steelhead Appliance, hit the market this past spring. It harnesses several technologies to speed up the flow of traffic over wide area networks.
"In our initial time studies, we found that it cut the download time for our CAD files in half," McNeil says. "And because it has relieved network congestion, we also are getting faster response times in our Lotus Notes system, and our voice-over IP system is running much more smoothly as well."
Alan Saldich, a Riverbed VP, says networks have been clogged with unnecessary data traffic, but it wasn't noticeable until the boom in global business exposed the amount of time it takes for requests for specific pieces data to travel long distances.
"The most common approach to this problem has been use of compression technology," Saldich says. "That makes the data packets smaller, but it doesn't make things move any faster. It's like allowing more cars onto an already crowded freeway."
Saldich says the Steelhead appliance compresses data, but it also does other things to actually speed the flow of traffic.
First, it makes a copy of the file being sent—such as a Fisher & Co. CAD file—and stores it in the memory of a second appliance at the receiving end of the network. Second, Saldich says, the appliance is programmed to learn what a user is asking for when they make certain keystrokes. That allows it to anticipate the data a user is requesting and thus cut the time it takes to respond to the request.
In cases like Fisher's, in which the user can change what's called up, Saldich says, the appliance only sends the new information to the receiving end, further cutting data travel time.
Fisher currently has two of the appliances in its network: one at the home office, and one in the Swedish design center. McNeil says there was little or no configuration involved in installing the devices, and he expects to purchase at least two more when Fisher opens another design center in India.
"There needs to be more of these types of devices on the market," says McNeil. "They will allow people to do business globally without having huge IT staffs and servers everywhere."
