Riverbed extends lead in WDS with RiOS 5.0

BANGALORE, INDIA: Riverbed Technology Inc. has launched v5.0 of the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS), which powers the award-winning Riverbed Steelhead product line. RiOS 5.0 extends the Riverbed lead in delivering to its customers the best speed for the broad range of applications important to businesses of every size and across all industries.

With the introduction of RiOS 5.0, Riverbed is the first vendor to provide application-level protocol optimization for Microsoft Exchange 2007. This makes Riverbed the first and the only vendor to accelerate Microsoft Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007.  In addition, Riverbed is building upon its lead in delivering solutions to enhance IT flexibility and capabilities with new scale, simplicity and security features, including the new RiOS Services Platform (RSP) for delivering virtualized edge services without the need to deploy additional branch office servers.

In a recent survey of over 1,000 WDS customers, over half said application performance was their primary reason for purchasing a WDS solution. With RiOS 5.0, Riverbed has extended its lead in meeting this demand by providing even faster performance for enterprise applications, including Exchange 2007 and enterprise Web applications.

Another First: Exchange (MAPI) 2007 Acceleration

Riverbed has expanded its support for Microsoft Exchange environments and is the first WDS vendor to deliver a protocol optimization specifically for the Exchange 2007 protocol (MAPI 2K7) at the application layer. Riverbed is the only vendor that provides application-level optimization for Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007.

More Application-Level Acceleration

In RiOS 5.0, Riverbed adds to its existing HTTP and HTTPS acceleration capabilities by further improving the performance of enterprise Web applications, including SAP NetWeaver, Oracle, PeopleSoft/JD Edwards, Microsoft and Siebel CRM, SharePoint, and Outlook Web Access (OWA). In RiOS 5.0, Riverbed can further reduce the chattiness and delay often associated with enterprise Web-based applications. Users of RiOS 5.0 will see additional performance improvements of up to 10X for their Web applications.

RiOS 5.0 also delivers acceleration capabilities for Oracle 11i applications running in HTTP mode. This acceleration builds on the existing RiOS support for Oracle 11i Jinitiator socket mode optimization and targets the Oracle E-Business suite of applications, particularly Oracle forms traffic and reporting, as well as other application operations. Riverbed is the only vendor that provides application-level optimization for Oracle 11i.

Keep it Simple: Ease of Management

Ease of management is critical for organizations large and small. The ease of management delivered by Riverbed is one of the key reasons that, according to IDC, customers experience a payback within approximately seven months when implementing Riverbed solutions. With RiOS 5.0, Riverbed has expanded on its already strong management capabilities with features such as the RSP, an enhanced GUI and role-based administration. These new capabilities allow organizations of all sizes to greatly simplify the management of IT at their remote locations and are especially important in large-scale and centralized environments.

Virtualized Edge Services: RiOS Services Platform (RSP)

The RSP is an extensible data services platform that enables the delivery of virtualized edge services without the need to deploy additional physical servers at remote or branch offices. The game-changing RSP allows customers to deploy best-of-breed services from their choice of vendors on Steelhead appliances in a self-contained partition to minimize the hardware infrastructure footprint at the branch office. In a typical RSP deployment, IT infrastructure at the remote site is simplified to include the RSP and a router.

Potential services that could be delivered on the RSP include Active Directory/Domain Controller functionality, application performance monitoring, DNS/DHCP/IPAM, streaming video, unified threat management (UTM), and virtual machines. Existing services provided by Riverbed are print and proxy file services (PFS).

Manageability Enhancements

RiOS 5.0 introduces role-based administration capability to give customers more granular control in assigning tasks to administrators of different levels. In addition, RiOS 5.0 features a new GUI to revamp the Web-based management interface for Steelhead appliances. The new interface provides more intuitive menus and simplifies management and configuration.

Improved Deployment Flexibility and Control

Deployment flexibility and control are critical for large-scale deployments. RiOS 5.0 builds on existing Riverbed integration and control features with hierarchical QoS and new WAN visibility modes.

Have it Your Way: Three WAN Visibility Modes

Riverbed now provides flexibility for organizations that want to enable end-to-end transparency of WAN traffic by IP address and port or by port only. Steelhead appliances enable full IP or port-only address visibility on the WAN for optimized connections in addition to their default correct addressing mode. With three visibility modes to choose from, IT organizations and managed service providers can select the appropriate mode of operation for their network without making sweeping architectural design changes to implement WDS.  Riverbed is the only vendor to offer customers this type of flexibility for their WDS deployment.

More Granular QoS Made Easy

In RiOS 5.0, Riverbed is adding to its QoS classification of traffic based on both bandwidth and priority with the launch of hierarchical QoS. Hierarchical QoS allows customers to assign different QoS specifications on a per site basis in addition to setting application or protocol priorities.  Riverbed’s QoS capability not only provides granularity, but also simplified management for complex environments.  Riverbed Steelhead appliances have always worked with existing customer QoS implementations to seamlessly prioritize mission-critical traffic over the WAN, such as VoIP, video conferencing and other real-time traffic.

Enhanced Security Across the Board

The security functionality in RiOS 5.0 builds on Riverbed’s extensive work in building solutions that ensure the security and integrity of enterprise data. With RiOS 5.0, Riverbed has enhanced the implementation of SSL acceleration, with new functionality for ease-of-setup and management. Other security enhancements include new IPSEC functionality. Riverbed’s set of security features provides its customers with the industry’s only WDS solution that preserves end-to-end security, while delivering ease-of-use and management, for data in motion and data at rest.

RiOS 5.0 will be generally available in March 2008.