A completely new product, the Riverbed Interceptor™ is the ideal solution for the world's largest enterprise networks. With support for up to 4 Gbps of optimized WAN traffic and up to 1,000,000 simultaneous TCP connections, the Interceptor combined with Steelhead appliances is unconditionally the most scalable WDS solution on the market.

Typical Interceptor Deployment

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An Interceptor is deployed in-path behind a WAN router at the data center from where it distributes TCP connections evenly across a stack of local Steelhead appliances. The Interceptor enables flexible and scalable deployment without requiring the complex configuration of PBR or WCCP, making the deployment of a Riverbed-based WAN acceleration solution simpler, faster and more scalable than any other vendor.

Key Features and Benefits

Up to 1,000,000 concurrent connections

The Interceptor enables large numbers of Steelhead appliances to work in parallel, optimizing up to 1,000,000 connections. The Interceptor supports in-path configurations over a single interface as large as a 6Gbps ether-channel trunk.

Up to 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports

The Interceptor can be configured with up to 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports to provide maximum scalability on networks with multi-router ingress/egress.

Ether-channel support

The Interceptor provides ether-channel support to expand bandwidth capacity in a variety of combinations to suit any environment. One 6Gbps interface, one 4Gbps and one 2 Gbps interface, or three 2Gbps interfaces are all supported.

TCP connection forwarding

Very large environments with asymmetrically-routed networks can employ connection forwarding technology between Interceptors to ensure connection continuity. Connection Forwarding can be enabled on up to 20 Interceptors running in single or failover mode.

Real-time cluster management

The Interceptor allows real-time addition, modification, or removal of Steelhead appliances in a connection distribution group.

Failover support

Interceptor appliances can be configured for failover mode to provide continued operations in the event of a hardware failure.

Link-state propagation

To ensure consistency throughout networking monitoring systems, an Interceptor will propagate a link state change to an opposing network device. Link state propagation is also supported on serially-clustered Interceptor appliances.

Familiar RiOS user interface

The Interceptor utilizes the same web UI and command line interface as the Steelhead appliance. The same in-path rules system can be used on the Interceptor to configure what types of traffic should be optimized by a group of Steelhead appliances.

Variable and Auto Connection Distribution.

The Interceptor provides several means of distributing connections between Steelheads in a cluster group, including algorithms for connection allocation based on source IP address, destination IP address, destination port, or the VLAN routing the connection..In the absence of custom rule sets, the Interceptor will dynamically determine the least-loaded Steelhead appliances to which it will direct traffic.

QoS compatible

The Interceptor honors all QoS markings (DSCP and IP Precedence) on traffic it optimizes, ensuring that priority traffic reaches its destination first.

Specifications

Compatibility

• Full feature compatibility with Steelhead appliances running RiOS 3.0 or higher
• Limited support for Steelhead appliances running earlier releases of RiOS

Platform

• 3U Rack Mount Chassis
• Triple redundant power supplies

Web Browser Support

• Most major browsers running current versions
• Tested with Mozilla and Internet Explorer