Brink's France Banks on Streamcore to Accelerate Valuable Applications; Global Secure Logistics Company Selects Streamcore to Optimize WAN and Enhance Performance of Mission-Critical Applications.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Streamcore, the specialist in performance management solutions for networked applications, has announced that its technology has been deployed by Brink's France, a global leader in transportation and security services. The implementation will optimize the performance of Brink's France's Wide Area Network (WAN) and support its initiative to centralize management of key applications.

Brink's has 8,000 employees across more than 100 sites in France. It delivers three main services: Cash Management (armored transportation, cash processing, ATMs), Security Services (corporate guardianship, ports and airports, individuals, special events, etc.) and international transportation of valuables (gold, diamonds, etc.).

Brink's is centralizing its core applications, including both commonly-used services (scheduling) and strategic ones (such as for counting fiduciary currency, or interacting with banking institutions) in order to minimize the task of managing a highly distributed network and to streamline core business processes. This move to a centralized infrastructure places additional burden on the WAN and hinders performance, which can lead to unacceptable delays in critical data transport, such as bank transmissions.

The company was aware that increasing bandwidth was not the solution and that using the Quality of Service functions provided by operators on an MPLS network would not ensure the required performance levels since the number of classes of service is limited, and users or applications within each class cannot be differentiated. It needed a flexible bandwidth solution with sufficient granularity to ensure optimal application performance.

Brink's has deployed eight Streamcore StreamGroomer devices at its regional division offices, the head office and its hosting center, and has successfully set up bandwidth optimization policies. Streamcore's dynamic Multi-Shaping feature, which supervises downlink bandwidth without needing to deploy devices at both ends, streamlines performance management across Brink's 102 regional French offices. This ensures that the network is no longer saturated and IT managers can control all network activity. In addition, built-in reporting tools, which analyze both application response times and transfer times, enable Brink's to quickly identify and resolve problems.

"Our data links were becoming saturated," said Jacques Baudouin, SARQ (IT Security, Architecture, Networks and Quality) Manager for Brink's France. "File transfers and email crippled the performance of our strategic centralized applications. We encountered problems especially with Telnet and Citrix scheduling applications in our Security Services entity. When you manage security at an airport, for example, you must be extremely responsive and application performance is vital. We have found both the deployment and use of Streamcore devices to be extremely simple, allowing us to focus on the essentials -- ensuring strong network and application performance."

The SARQ department has also deployed two StreamGroomers specifically for testing all new applications prior to roll-out. This allows it to anticipate the impact on the WAN of new deployments and accurately plan network capacity to ensure any deployment is a success.

"Brink's typifies the challenge that Streamcore is well positioned to address," said Eric Jeux, CEO of Streamcore US. "It runs multiple mission-critical applications over a single WAN. Streamcore delivers a solution that adapts dynamically and fulfils the needs of each single mission-critical user session."

About Streamcore

Streamcore is the technological leader in application service delivery over Wide Area Networks. The company helps businesses monitor and optimize the performance of their strategic applications over WAN networks and reduce their operational costs. From its offices in Sunnyvale, CA, Dallas, TX, Atlanta, GA, Freehold NJ, and Paris, France, Streamcore supplies its products through a worldwide network of distributors and integrators. For more information: www.streamcore.com