PHOENIX, Storage Networking World Conference, April 12 /PRNewswire/ -- FineGround Inc., the leader in Web application delivery, will be demonstrating its new Velocity-FS Wide Area File Services (WAFS) appliance this week at Storage Networking World (SNW), co-owned by IDG's Computerworld and the Storage Networking Industry Association. Companies such as Cascade Lumber and Manufacturing Company are already deploying the newly-launched solution for storage and file server consolidation projects aimed at improving storage utilization and recovery, cutting storage management costs and facilitating regulatory compliance.

"We implemented FineGround Velocity-FS as part of an effort to ensure that our remote offices could function as a single, seamless entity," said Joel Althoff, IT manager of Cascade Lumber and Manufacturing. "Our challenge was to ensure that IT service levels were consistent for all offices, while minimizing bandwidth and telecom expenses. With FineGround Velocity-FS we've been able to increase productivity, decrease costs and facilitate better remote management and data back-up -- all from our central operation."

Cascade Lumber and Manufacturing, a leading a manufacturer and distributor of engineered roof and floor systems, has deployed Velocity-FS to accelerate file access for users at its branches and remote sites throughout the Midwest. Since installing Velocity-FS in its main data center, Cascade has reduced branch and site download times from 70 seconds to less than five seconds, while maintaining existing bandwidth. In addition, Velocity-FS has enabled the company to consolidate its various branch office storage pools into one centralized repository to facilitate better disaster recovery and ensure proper remote storage "back-up."

"Managing branch office storage is an operational nightmare for companies operating distributed organizations," said William Hurley, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "FineGround's Velocity-FS solution represents a new approach to solving the myriad performance, cost and functional problems associated with file sharing across multiple offices. Because a single appliance can optimize file traffic to an unlimited number of branches, FineGround's innovative WAFS solution has the potential to do for the file server what the browser did for the application server."

Cascade utilizes a virtual private network (VPN) with relatively low bandwidth to provide its remote offices access to corporate information and applications which are maintained in a data center at headquarters. As the company has grown, adding remote locations and employees, the time it takes users to access information has dramatically increased, cutting employee and overall company productivity. In addition to increasing usability, Cascade needed to consolidate its storage in an effort to better facilitate disaster recovery and ensure all corporate data was being backed up.

After researching several solutions, Cascade decided to install the FineGround Velocity-FS appliance because it was the only "single-box" WAFS solution that would reside in Cascade's main data center and require no appliances or agents in the branches to speed file access over the Wide Area Network (WAN). Velocity-FS is different from file engines or symmetrical compression devices. It installs in front of data center storage and file systems to optimize file service traffic across the WAN.

Storage Networking World Spring 2005 will be held April 12-15 at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Phoenix, Ariz. To learn more about the FineGround Velocity-FS Wide Area File Services (WAFS) appliance, please visit booth #C33.

About FineGround

FineGround is the leading provider of application delivery systems that accelerate and optimize the delivery of business-critical applications across the extended enterprise. FineGround appliances control and optimize at the application layer using a unique combination of application-specific techniques for bandwidth reduction, latency management and server offloading. FineGround's application and file delivery solutions are used by the world's largest global enterprises -- organizations with hundreds of locations, thousands of remote workers and partners, and tens of thousands of servers

-- including Alcoa, BMW, Cargill, Royal Mail, Sun Microsystems, Walgreens, and Whirlpool. FineGround is a privately held, venture-backed company headquartered in Campbell, California with regional headquarters in London and Hong Kong, and on the Web at http://www.fineground.com/.

CONTACT: Leah Bibbo of Kulesa PR, +1-650-340-1982, or leah@kulesapr.com,
for FineGround

Web site: http://www.fineground.com/