Media Release

Johannesburg, [Insert Date] For immediate release

Network Alliance implements major Riverbed Solution for Namakwa Diamonds

Network Alliance, a specialist IT and network solutions provider for small and medium enterprises, has announced the successful completion of the South African phase of its first major Riverbed project. The ground-breaking WAN optimisation project was planned, developed and implemented for Namakwa Diamonds, an integrated diamond resource group, which has offices and operating units throughout the country as well as at five locations in Africa. Namakwa Diamonds identified the need to optimise its WAN in order to improve financial management capability, access to key information, user experience, functionality and cost efficiency, says Raymond Wright, Network Alliance Managing Director. Working with the groups management team, we identified Riverbed technology as the best platform to meet those needs. Riverbed products and services improve IT infrastructure, speed up application performance and, importantly, reduce costly bandwidth utilisation. One of the most significant benefits to the client is that Riverbed not only optimises data traffic, but significantly reduces the need for big data lines, which cost a fortune, says Pieter Meiring, Network Alliances Systems Engineer on the project. This means that remote sites can operate on 1Mbps and even 12Kbps lines instead of needing 4Mbps or 5Mbps lines. The savings in the long term are substantial, and thats without taking the benefit of increased business efficiency into account. This is confirmed by Namakwa Diamonds Managing Director, Anton Jacobs, who has been involved in the project since the concept stage.

There was an immediate improvement in speed, capacity and user experience once the Riverbed solution went live, he says, and in terms of savings, well be able to offset the cost of the entire project within two years. From a business efficiency point of view, the new VSAT-based system has given the group the capacity to complete financial consolidations online and to have this information available at all sites in real time. The benefit of this capability in todays quick-moving business environment cant be underestimated, says Jacobs, especially for a group like ours, which has many geographically remote sites. All of our mines in South Africa can now access and interact with our central financial management and information systems, and can transact in the centralised environment, which they were unable to do before. The next phase of the project will involve extending the Riverbed solution to Namakwas operating units in Africa, a phase which is already underway. Network Alliance anticipates that Namakwa will see the same 90% improvement in efficiency at its African sites that it has seen locally. The built-in network assessment capability will further analyse system behaviour and find the source of any performance problems before they affect the end user. Network Alliance has specifically skilled up to plan, implement and manage Riverbed solutions as the need for WAN optimisation in the business environment grows, says Raymond Wright. We are already one of the first companies in South Africa to successfully transition to Microsofts new Partner Network, and we aim to be a partner of choice for businesses requiring scalable Riverbed solutions. For further information, please contact Raymond Wright: 0861 22 55 62.

Ends.