OREANDA-NEWS. CROC, a leading Russian systems integrator, has been awarded Elite Partner status by Riverbed Technology, the leading application performance infrastructure player.

"The number of projects implemented jointly with Riverbed™ is increasing, especially this year, with approximately 30 joint projects having been worked on thus far, including WAN optimization, performance management, and data storage performance acceleration. We are doing business with large banks, transport companies, and production holdings. For example, we helped Alfa-Bank reduce communication channel load by 40%, thus allowing for a decrease in costs and 3.5 times quicker data transmission. In addition, the integrated solution for network traffic analysis and optimization was recently implemented at a leading gold mining company, which now benefits from 30% traffic volume reduction and accelerated applications," said Andrey Vrublevsky, Head of Network Optimization and Control Practice, CROC.

The Riverbed SteelHead family of products has been a leading optimizer and accelerator of applications for over the last seven years and has more than a 50% share in the total global WAN optimization solution market. The payback period of such projects is 1-2.5 years.

CROC recently became the first Riverbed Elite Partner in Russia. This is the highest status awarded to partners that prove their financial reliability, develop joint business, obtain at least three of the vendor's four specializations and have certified specialists on their staff. This status allows CROC to implement complicated and integrated projects and to provide extended technical support to customers.

"CROC has been one of our key partners since 2008, when Riverbed started active operations in the Russian market. Furthermore, the only official Riverbed Authorized Training Center in Russia is deployed on CROC's site. Approximately 10 CROC engineers successfully passed our certification and are now engaged in integration and service projects and we are confident that the number of joint implementations and customers will continue to increase in the future," said Alexander Stulov, Sales Director in Russia and CIS, Riverbed Technology.

CROC has been cooperating with Riverbed since 2008, with the company receiving annual confirmation of its professional excellence. For example, in August 2014, CROC received Riverbed's Star VAR Russia Award 2014 for high service quality and successful promotion of solutions.