Stolen vehicle recovery system provider, Tracker, has purchased and deployed Riverbed's Steelhead appliances in order to improve WAN performance across its national network, with the assistance of WAN optimisation company, Rapid Technologies.
The Tracker system was developed in the US by LoJack where it was instrumental in the founding of the mainstream vehicle tracking industry in 1986. It was specifically developed to assist the police in curtailing vehicle theft.
To date, there are more than two million units fitted throughout 30 countries in the world, including the UK, Hong Kong, Russia, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Columbia.
In South Africa, Tracker has been operational since October 1996. The company enjoys strong financial backing, has invested millions in establishing its own network and has become the most successful vehicle tracking company on the continent. Its technology has recovered more than 40 000 stolen and hijacked vehicles which have resulted in some 7 400 arrests - enough criminals to fill a large South African prison.
Tracker focuses on arresting criminals as it aims to help effect a turnaround on vehicle crime in South Africa and, in the process "take back tomorrow" for all its law-abiding citizens. In short, Tracker is a symbol of hope for South Africa.
The organisation has seen substantial growth over the last few years, both in the number of users as well as the number of distributed offices across South Africa. Challenges that needed to be overcome through the use of Riverbed's Wide Area Data Services (WDS) technology included the optimisation of existing bandwidth and the improvement of file sharing between remote offices.
"When it came to looking at our options, we knew we had to go with Riverbed and Rapid Technologies - there simply wasn't any other choice in our minds. We are very impressed by what Riverbed is able to offer," says Benn Van Coller, overall head of Tracker's IT.
After a successful trial, Johan Olivier, Tracker BIS Systems Manager, and his team began installing appliances around the country. To date, Tracker has deployed 18 Steelhead appliances across South Africa. The implementation went smoothly, without requiring changes to Tracker's existing network.
"There are additional benefits that Riverbed offers over and above addressing bandwidth constraints," explained Sandy Phillips, Sales Director, Rapid Technologies. "Riverbed has built in accelerators in most applications - this speeds up transactions across the network. This is imperative to service delivery in a centralised environment. These are some of the benefits that were presented to Tracker in the decision-making process."
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