The financial services business in Toronto had chosen to use Web-based applications as much as possible with application service provider (ASP) partners so it didn't have to build a huge infrastructure to connect its headquarters and seven satellite offices. A high priority was to keep the operation lean with desktop PCs that used single sign-ons for its approximately 300 users to gain access to their needed applications.

But by 2005, application performance was becoming a concern, said Andrew McKinney, director of technical services for Richardson Partners Financial.

'The performance issues were raised by users and through our monitoring of the network,' he said.

The company, which was started in 2003 by parent James Richardson & Sons Ltd., increased its available bandwidth to 5MB redundant lines with its Internet service provider, Bell Canada International Inc. But that was a costly move, prompting the firm to seek other ways of making its hub-and-spoke network architecture more efficient. Last year, IT staffers began looking at network traffic acceleration appliances from Blue Coat Systems Inc. and several competitors. It later conducted on-site trials of products from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Blue Coat and one other vendor.

Initially, Richardson's IT staff looked at caching network traffic so critical business traffic could be given priority for delivery. It also considered filtering bandwidth-hogging streaming media to reduce the network load.