The Riverbed Blog

Bringing home the Gold

Riverbed has won the Gold prize in the Storage Magazine Product of the Year Competition, recognized for how our technology can greatly enhance storage solutions. It was interesting to see Cisco WAAS was not selected in the top three.

From the report:

Networking equipment GOLD AWARD: Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) 5.0
Riverbed Technology Inc.'s RiOS operating system impressed our judging panel with its ability to consolidate and simplify remote-location infrastructure. RiOS reduces the hardware footprint in remote locations by virtualizing edge services, accelerating application performance and simplifying remote-location administration. The RiOS OS powers the company's Steelhead WAN acceleration appliances, mobile client and Riverbed Services Platform (RSP).

See the full story here.

How Teleworkers are Like the Dallas Cowboys

Telework, like the metrics system and professional soccer all seem to be perpetually projected as the next big thing in the United States.  While FC Dallas tattoos are not yet quite as prevasive as those supporting the Dallas Cowboys, telework has exploded from promising idea to common solution to the speed and execution demands facing modern businesses. 

Mobility has become so mainstream that according to the recent study "WorldatWork Telework Trendlines 2009” commissioned from The Dieringer Research Group, the total number of employees that telework at least once a month is greater than the entire population of Canada (33.7mm vs 33.56mm). Today Network World Associate New Editor Ann Bednarz highlighted a number of the findings from the report as well as discussed the the crucial role that Mobile WAN optimization solutions can play in ensuring the success of a telework program.

Since workers are becoming just as effective away from the office as they are in it I can only wonder what will come next: speed limits in KPH or $3mm MLS Cup Ad Rates....

Microsoft and Riverbed forge OEM relationship

Riverbed recently announced a broadened relationship with Microsoft that results in Windows Server 2008 as an integrated option running within the RSP (Riverbed Services Platform) on Riverbed's Steelhead appliance.

This licensing agreement between Riverbed and Microsoft further solidifies Riverbed's position as the go-to WAN optimization vendor when it comes to helping organizations successfully perform branch office server consolidation projects. 

In this harsh economic climate when organizations are looking to cut costs in any way they can, server consolidation is an ideal way to reduce hardware costs, lower power consumption, and reduce costly management hours.  While consolidation makes obvious sense, undergoing complete consolidation where all servers are centralized at the data center is not possible for many.  There are services like domain controlling, print, and dns/dhcp that organizations want to keep local in a branch.  The result is that some servers must remain and that means that the solid cost savings benefit from consolidation isn't totally realized. 

While WAN optimization can help with the performance problems associated with consolidation, many WAN optimization vendors do nothing to help with the consolidation of these local services.  With Riverbed's licensing of Windows Server 2008, organizations can consolidate these branch office servers locally in the VMware equipped virtualization environment on the Steelhead appliance.  At the same time, Riverbed's Steelhead appliance addresses the performance problems when accessing those servers that have been centralized and consolidated to the data center.  Sounds like a no-brainer?  I agree!

I would like to hear from you on your plans for consolidation and whether the need to keep some services local has impacted you consolidation effort.  Maybe Riverbed can help!

Riverbed radically reduces RPO & RTO, rocketing recovery

Really sorry about that headline, but it’s true, folks.  We’ve announced some great news recently, expanding our value in disaster recovery (DR) and business continuance.  Riverbed has always had a lot to offer for DR operations.  Our data reduction slashes the amount of network traffic needed for remote backup or replication, while our application and TCP optimizations overcome the high latency inherent to wide area networks.  What does this mean for your organization?  You can protect more data, more frequently, and recover more quickly.  You might also be able to save some money by deferring network upgrades or even reducing the size of connections between datacenters or branch offices.

Great to know, but that’s old news.  What have we done for you lately, you ask?  Well, quite a bit actually.  We’ve released the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) version 5.5, which has a ton of new DR features such as multi-core processing, adaptive compression, and memory-only data reduction.  We’ve been qualified by EMC to accelerate replication for their SRDF/A between Symmetrix arrays.  We’ve put together web seminars to educate you on the latest and greatest DR best practices, collaborating with leading storage software companies like Double-Take and top technology industry analysts like Forrester.  We’ve even seen the delivery of a must-read whitepaper by the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) on “Re-Architecting Disaster Recovery Solutions Leveraging WAN Optimization Technology” (or “RADRSLWOT” for short!)

If you haven’t looked at utilizing Riverbed to improve your DR plans, now’s the time.  It doesn’t matter if you’re on the storage team or the network side of things, or even the CIO.  You can improve your RPO and RTO, and get a great ROI for the project.  Go on, rocket your recovery with Riverbed.

We would like to hear from you.  What does your disaster recovery strategy entail?  Have you thought about how WAN optimization could impact things?

Steelhead Mobile?

The California Department of Fish and Game takes a different approach to making steelhead's mobile at the Healdsburg Wild Steelhead Festival...

(Photo courtesy of Riverbed Sr. Product Marketing Manager Nik Rouda)

Riverbed at Legal Tech 2009

"Guess what? Perrry Mason wins!"  It's not IF Perry Mason wins but HOW that provided the magic for the fictional main charecter of countless legal novels and television series.  As I prepare to head to travel from Riverbed's corporate headquarter in San Francisco to New York for LegalTech 2009 "Sir Perry Galahad Mason" seemed like an appropriate model to base my preparation for the show.  With an extensive list of legal customers including over one third of the one hundred largest law firms in the world the question is not whether Riverbed can help firms put their clients needs first but how dramatic the results can be. The flexibility of Riverbed's core architecture provides firms with the opportunity to not only enhance lawyer productivity but also ensure greater data continuity by accelerating disaster recovery and backup. 

I invite you to join me at booth 2205 for a live demo where you can see for youreself why Riverbed is the high performance IT infrastructure leader and how we can make solving your network challenges an open and shut case.

For more information about Riverbed at LegalTech 2009 please see: <http://www.riverbed.com/company/news/press_releases/press_013009.php>