8/4/2019 Mustang Engineering Cs

1/2

Case Study |

OverviewMustang Engineering(www.mustangeng.com) providesservices to the oil, gas, chemical,and manufacturing industries.When the company replaced itsaging collaboration software withMicrosoft

Office SharePoint

Server 2007, it used F5 Networks

BIG-IP

Local Traffic Manager6400 with WebAccelerator toboost the applications performanceby at least 60 percent. The solutionhas resulted in rapid employeeadoption of the new collaboration

environment, and in light of thesuccess, the company plans toextend the solution to otherenterprise applications as well.

ChallengesKnowledge sharing and efficientproject management are critical to thesuccess of Mustang Engineering.With headquarters in Houston, Texas,and offices in six other states andthree international locations, thecompany relies on more than 4,000employees to provide clients withquality design, engineering, andproject management.

When the company decided toreplace its out-dated intranet andportal collaboration software, itchose Office SharePoint

Server2007. We knew that performancecan seem cumbersome and slow tothe user when there is a heavy loadon a SharePoint server, says KeithWingate, Senior Network Architectat Mustang. Wingates team waswell aware that as many as 4,000

users, from national andinternational remote locations,might be accessing the SharePointServer 2007 environment at anyone time. To ensure that employeestake full advantage of the newcollaboration environment, Mustangknew it had to ensure top applicationperformance from the outset. Weneeded to find something thatwould ease the performance hit,Wingate says.

SolutionWith help from Accudata Systems

(www.accudatasystems.com), anIT consulting and integration firm,Mustang Engineering identifiedBIG-IP

Local Traffic Manager (LTM)with WebAccelerator as the solutionfor boosting SharePoint Server2007 performance.BIG-IP WebAccelerator is a webapplication delivery solution thathelps organizations overcomeperformance issues involvingbrowsers, web applicationplatforms, and wide area network(WAN) latency.

In a test development environmentat its Houston headquarters, Mustangcompared the results of runningSharePoint Server 2007 with andwithout the support of BIG-IP LTM6400 with WebAccelerator. Theresults were compelling, saysChris Laney, Accudata SystemsAccount Manager. Accudata Systemshad also recently helped MustangEngineering deploy the F5

BIG-IPLink Controller to improve WANconnectivity across the companys

Industry

Professional ServicesEngineering

Challenges

Enterprise application performance High traffic volumes

Solution

BIG-IP

Local Traffic Manager (LTM) 6400 with WebAccelerator module

Benefits

Performance boosted by 60 percent Improved ROI for enterprise applications Two-thirds reduction in servers used Scalable, extensible environment

Engineering Firm Boosts Performance ofMicrosoft Office SharePoint Server 2007to Ensure User Satisfaction, Improve ROIWe saw a 60 percent

performance increasein SharePoint after weimplemented BIG-IP

with WebAccelerator.

Keith Wingate,Senior Network ArchitectMustang Engineering

8/4/2019 Mustang Engineering Cs

2/2

Case Study |

multiple Internet connections.Wingate says, It was a combinationof our past experience with theBIG-IP Link Controller and these

resultswhich showed a markedperformance improvement inSharePointthat convinced usto go with BIG-IP LTM withWebAccelerator.

In January, 2008, MustangEngineering deployed SharePointServer 2007 with two BIG-IP LTM6400 devices with WebAcceleratorsitting in front of the SharePointservers. At the time of deployment,the company ran a promotionalevent, which encouraged employeesto explore the new intranet to getprizes for finding new features,functionality, and content. Needlessto say, this event was successfuland it sparked high traffic volumesto the SharePoint servers.

After deployment, Wingate attendedan F5 training session forconfiguring and managing BIG-IPLTM. It was about the best trainingI've been to. Afterwards, with somevery minor tweaks to BIG-IP, I wasable to take advantage of moreperformance-improving features.

Mustang also relies on F5 Acopiaintelligent file virtualization solutionsto simplify management andstorage of the files associated withthe companys more than 5,000projectsapproximately 12 millionfiles. F5 Acopia

ARX

1000 switchesare used by Mustang to efficientlymanage files and data on sixphysical volumes over two NetworkAppliance clusters, providing userswith a single point of access to allshared project files.

BenefitsMustang Engineering successfullydeployed and maintains a highly-responsive SharePoint Server 2007

environment with help from F5Application Delivery Networkingproducts.

Performance Boosted by60 PercentIn its test environment, Mustangwitnessed significant SharePointServer 2007 performance gainsover a simulated WANwithoutadditional hardware or codemanipulation. We saw a 60 percentperformance increase in SharePointafter we implemented BIG-IP withWebAccelerator, says Wingate. Inthe production environment, evenwith a heavy server load during theSharePoint Server 2007 promotion,Wingate says, There were nocomplaints about sluggishnessthere were no performance issues.

Improved ROI for EnterpriseApplicationsMustang keeps its SharePointServer 2007 users satisfied withfast application performance.BIG-IP with WebAccelerator isexactly what we needed. Even withlots of traffic to the server, userscan have several open sessionswithin SharePoint and stillexperience fast performance,

says Wingate. The enhanced userexperience results in a higher rateof adoption for SharePoint amongMustang employees.

For technology partners, thebenefits are huge, says Laney.Accudata Systems is seeing asharp increase in demandfor services around SharePointServer 2007, and as we help ourclients plan and implement theirSharePoint environments, one oftheir foremost objectives is toprovide a positive user experience.

SharePoint is typically a highprofile, business critical solution,so performance is key. If usersexperience slow response times,

they are likely to use the systemless or not at all. This can be amajor obstacle to achieving atimely ROI on a SharePoint

investment. Our ability to walk inthe door with F5 gives us a greatadvantage because we can nowaddress performance issues beforethey arise.

Two-thirds Reduction in Numberof Servers UsedWith its new application deliverysolution, Mustang is able to usefewer servers for SharePoint Server2007 than originally planned. Afterwe fully understood the benefits ofWebAccelerator, we reduced thenumber of SharePoint Servers wehad planned to use by two-thirds.With efficiency-enhancing featuressuch as Intelligent BrowsingReferencing, which eliminates theneed for web browsers to downloadrepetitive or duplicate data, andSSL offload which migrates CPU-intensive SSL encryption anddecryption from the SharePointservers to the F5 devices, BIG-IPLTM with WebAcceleratorsignificantly reduces server loadand use of bandwidth.

Scalable, ExtensibleEnvironmentMustangs new application deliverysolution also gives the companyroom to grow. "In the future, saysWingate, as we open up ourSharePoint environment tocustomers, demand on our serverswill increase. BIG-IP withWebAccelerator will be a great helpwith that. Wingate also says thatMustang justified the F5 purchasedecision because it also plans touse BIG-IP to improve performanceof other enterprise applications, like

Microsoft Outlook Web Access andour Citrix servers.

F5 Networks, Inc.Corporate Headquarters401 Elliott Avenue WestSeattle, WA 98119(206) 272-5555 Voice(888) 88BIGIP Toll-Free(206) 272-5556 Faxwww.f5.cominfo@f5.com

F5 NetworksAsia-Pacific+65-6533-6103 Voice+65-6533-6103 Faxinfo.asia@f5.com

F5 Networks, LtdEurope/Middle-East/Africa+44 (0)1932 582 000 Voice+44 (0)1932 582 001 Faxemeainfo@f5.com

F5 NetworksJapan K.K.+81-3-5114-3200 Voice+81-3-5114-3201 Faxinfo@f5networks.co.jp