[SatNews] Expand Networks today announced that its advanced WAN Optimization technology is enhancing connectivity and communications across the global network of one of the UK’s largest charity’s, Christian Aid. The Expand Accelerators have successfully increased network performance, application delivery and connectivity between remote branch offices, supporting the charity in providing urgent, practical and effective assistance to some of the world’s poorest countries.

Alastair Salmon, Technical Projects Manager for International Operations at Christian Aid explains: “Connectivity is the single most taxing IT issue in almost all our country offices. Anything which helps to make best use of the available bandwidth helps to ensure our teams are able to complete their aid work more efficiently, while simultaneously making maximum use of our existing network investments. Since implementing the Expand technology we have experienced substantial productivity gains, making us better equipped to effectively meet the needs and objectives of the charity as a whole, and on an individual project basis.”

Realizing the benefits that WAN Optimization could bring to the organization, Christian Aid chose Expand Networks in order to tackle its connectivity problems head-on, as Alastair Salmon explains; “We had known about the potential of optimization technology and it’s benefits for a while and sought to find the most comprehensive solution that would meet our connectivity needs, as well as our economic objectives as a charity. We found that Expand had a strong reputation within the charitable sector and the technology was highly recommended to us by our peers. In addition, we recently completed a VSAT project across Africa and our supplier highlighted Expand as their product of choice for tackling this particular issue, Expand’s expertise in optimizing satellite made them the obvious choice for us.”

Having rolled out Expand Accelerators across branch office locations in South America, Africa and Asia, Christian Aid is witnessing in the order of 40 percent traffic compression inbound and outbound to these sites. Alastair Salmon explains, “The Expand technology is now providing our largest global branches with greatly optimized connectivity. As well as the direct benefit of bandwidth compression and content caching, the Layer 7 QoS features have given us the visibility to assess exactly what traffic is passing through our links and then control it, which is invaluable from a network management perspective. All these improvements have in turn enabled us to displace a local domain controller in Delhi, simplifying local IT infrastructure and reducing costs.

“Looking ahead, we would like to do more with Expand but as a charity we will need to carefully balance costs on a case-by-case basis. In particular, we intend to investigate Expand’s software client (Mobile Accelerator) further, in order to improve the experience for our individual users, whilst providing the same level of office functionality, wherever they are, and at a lower cost.”

Adam Davison, VP Sales and Marketing at Expand explains, “Our WAN optimization technology is providing Christian Aid with the best possible network performance results, delivering applications across a global network of branch offices while delivering rapid RoI. Delivery of data and applications is critical to the fundamental objectives of the charity’s work and by bridging the WAN proximity gap for its users means that they can do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.”