Background
Beijing-based Crystal is one of the largest visual technology application service companies for the global design industry. Its professional image technology has been used in a large number of projects, including at the Beijing Olympic Games where it was the authorized 3D image development company. Crystal’s more than 1500 employees serve customers in Europe, America and the Middle East, and the company has a service network covering its Beijing headquarters and branch offices in China’s coastal cities and abroad.

 

Challenge
Crystal’s rapid expansion at home and abroad was placing unprecedented stress on the network with the greatest problems being experienced in its overseas business.
The toughest problem on Crystal’s networks was very low transmission rates when overseas branch offices downloaded video, audio and image files from the server in the Beijing headquarters, especially at peak hours. The average transmission rate was only 9.8kbps and it could take over an hour to transmit a video file of dozens of megabytes. Employees were fed up with frequent breakages on their VPN lines, which sometimes meant transmissions had to be repeated when the network failed just minutes from the end of a long transmission. The delays and failures were undermining Crystal’s work schedule.
At the root of the problems were the low-speed ADSL lines used by overseas branch offices and the shocking latency and packet loss rates on international Internet links. Real-world tests showed that the latency from branch offices such as those in Dubai and London to the Beijing HQ was over 500ms, and the packet loss rate was one to five percent.
Branch offices in China were also interconnected with the HQ through VPN lines, so the business in China was similarly affected.

 

Benefit
Crystal deployed SANGFOR’s WAN Optimization solution and the effect was immediate. Transmission rates increased by 10 times up to 180kbps, and network line drops were virtually eliminated.
Crystal reported that the transmission rate between the company and its overseas branch offices improved, enhancing overall productivity. Employees no longer needed to waste time on waiting for files to transmit, reducing both the project cycle and the number of complaints from employees.