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The Practical Cloud | HighQ speeds global collaboration
Posted by Martin Bankson Fri, 13/07/2012 – 15:26
http://www.businesscloud9.com/content/practical-cloud-highq-speeds-global-collaboration/11110
HighQ is a provider of secure document exchange and enterprise collaboration software. It provides collaboration and publishing products to some of the world’s leading law firms, investment banks and corporations. It combines secure, enterprise-grade document management with the best corporate social tools.
But this means working with the Internet, which many businesses assume means being geared to whatever speed of delivery the Internet can provide at any point in time.
The Problem
When rolling out its collaboration platform to overseas offices the company found that customers were reporting latency issues as a growing problem. It had managed to build up a good reputation with its customers, so sought to address the issue of global Internet performance as quickly as possible. It certainly did not want to limit its ability to service its international users, yet at face value the problem lay beyond their immediate control. The company, like many others, was at the mercy of the Internet itself when it came to global delivery performance.
The Solution
This was the prime motivation in selecting the Dynamic Web Acceleration service from CDNetworks to accelerate its dynamic web application content and enable its legal, investment bank, and corporate customers to collaborate securely across different countries and continents.
A key factor in HighQ’s decision was to preserve the ‘instant-on’ nature of its cloud application without the need to invest in expensive datacentres that would take considerable time to come online and drain resources in terms of man-hours, set up costs and technology investment. This enabled HighQ to speed-up download times greatly and to improve its service globally, realising an approximate 70% saving in infrastructure costs.
It also meant that the company could focus on its core expertise in enabling collaboration and rely on CDNetworks for delivery of dynamic site content and applications across multiple datacentres and networks.
CDNetworks’ solution enabled HighQ to accelerate both the application and its dynamic environment without relying on establishing local caches to store documents. This allowed HighQ to streamline its service upgrade and respond to its clients’ requirements as quickly as possible and at the same time maintain the dynamic and interactive nature of its application.
The Benefits
CDNetworks’ global points of presence (POPs), including in emerging markets, create a localised user experience, achieving up to a 2,000% increase in speed of downloads.
Now, HighQ is able to provide fast enterprise collaboration for its US and UK customers regardless of location. This includes distant and hard-to-get-to markets like Australia, the Middle East, India and China.
A secondary advantage was the ability to plug into the CDNetworks network and be up and running quickly.
Issues Addressed
- Internet performance and delivery latency
- Content delivery acceleration
- Infrastructure costs
- Provisioning/implementation speed
