Riverbed Introduces Suite of New Products and an Innovative Architectural Approach to Completely Consolidate IT

Every once in a while as a technology professional you get an opportunity to work on something disruptive.  This one is big. 

Today Riverbed introduced an architectural approach to consolidated IT known as edge virtual server infrastructure (Edge-VSI).  At the core of edge-VSI is Granite, a first of its kind edge server consolidation product.  

Edge-VSI does for edge servers outside of the data center what virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) did for desktops:  allow IT to consolidate edge servers in the data center, without impacting application performance at the edge.  To enable this approach, Riverbed introduces Granite, which allows organizations to consolidate servers and storage from edge locations to the data center, yet project the data to the edge of the enterprise as if it were local. 

This innovation decouples storage from compute delivering the best of all worlds:  100% consolidation and control of data while delivering LAN-like performance of applications at the edge.  All at up to 50% of the costs of traditional, distributed infrastructure.

In addition to Granite, Riverbed introduced two new Steelhead product series: 

•  Steelhead CX  - a series of dedicated WAN optimization appliances for the WAN optimization enthusiast

•  Steelhead EX - an enterprise-class branch office appliance series featuring WAN optimization and a VMware virtualization hypervisor for the consolidation enthusiast

Both Steelhead CX and Steelhead EX appliances have more resources (CPU, memory) and deliver more impressive specifications (throughput, TCP connections) than previous models.  Enjoy!