New Larger Steelhead Models
Riverbed offers the most scalable WAN acceleration products on the market. Period.
With the introduction of five new models of Steelhead appliances (the 1520, 3020, 3520, 5520, and 6020) and the new Riverbed Interceptor 9200, Riverbed offers the most scalable range WAN optimization appliances on the market by far.
Largest Single Model
Our largest model, the Steelhead 6020, supports up to 2xOC3 (310 Mbps) of optimized WAN traffic (and unlike some of our competitors, that performance is with our patented, award-winning Data Streamlining turned on (not idle). Other vendors sometimes cite their WAN optimization specs without their de-duplication features activated!).
Largest Clustered Option Deployment
Steelhead appliances can now scale up to 4 Gbps of optimized WAN traffic and support up to 1,000,000 simultaneous TCP connections when you use the new Riverbed Interceptor. Riverbed offers both the most scalable cluster architecture, as well as the most scalable single appliance in the Steelhead 6020.
High Bandwidth Link Optimization
If you are optimizing very high bandwidth links (Long Fat Networks) and don't need to de-duplicate your traffic, you have the option of turning off Data Streamlining and using our High Speed TCP feature on the 5520 or 6020. Then you'll see up to 800 Mbps of throughput on a single Steelhead appliance.
Riverbed Interceptor™
For very large scale data center implementations, Riverbed introduces the Interceptor. The Interceptor is deployed in front of a rack of Steelhead appliances, and allocates TCP connections among them while handling any required connection forwarding. The Interceptor is the simplest and most scalable way to deploy many Steelhead appliances in the data center. The Interceptor is optional, but gives you a new way to integrate Steelhead appliances into the largest and most complex enterprise networks without dealing with the complexities of WCCP or PBR. It supports up to 1,000,000 simultaneous TCP connections, and can aggregate up to 4 Gbps of optimized WAN traffic.
NFS Application Streamlining
Riverbed has extended our award winning Application Streamlining functionality to NFS, which will dramatically improve the performance of UNIX file sharing over the WAN, giving UNIX users the same LAN-like experience over the WAN that we've been delivering to Windows users for two years.
Improved Performance for CIFS (Windows) File Sharing
Riverbed continues to improve and deepen our market-leading CIFS performance, which means faster throughput for a wider range of applications and use cases, even in complex multi-user applications.
QoS – Bandwidth and Latency Based Prioritization and Enforcement
Steelhead appliances now optimize all WAN traffic, including VOIP, live streaming video. You now have the flexibility to implement QoS in your Steelhead appliances if you want to, and you can not only enforce QoS through bandwidth allocation, but also by latency-sensitivity. Administrators can identify traffic classes that are particularly sensitive to latency (like voice and video) and assign them higher priority, which means you don't have to over-allocate bandwidth for these critical applications.
Asymmetric Route Detection
For complex networks, our new asymmetric route detection feature can help you diagnose cases where both ends of a connection are physically disparate. RiOS will notify you that there is an asymmetric route, and then pass through traffic. Then, you'll have the ability to turn on Riverbed's connection forwarding features to seamlessly integrate into the asymmetrically routed links.
Client-Side Connection Forwarding
Complementing our already existing server-side connection forwarding feature, we have now enabled it on the client side of the WAN.
NetFlow Export
RiOS now includes a NetFlow emitter which will give you detailed information on top-talkers and listeners, and will show very detailed information about ports & applications. Now, client and server side IP addresses are preserved, giving you the fine grained visibility into your WAN traffic that you need.
"Agent-less" Pre-Population
Riverbed has improved the way pre-population works to eliminate the "cold hit" problem with new content. Now, there are no agents required at all, and you can pre-populate content to the edge from Windows servers, Network Appliance filers, EMC storage and so forth.
Improvements to PFS (Proxy File Service)
PFS is key if you're concerned about disconnected operations (continued access in the event of a WAN failure). With RiOS 3.0 we have improved the interface for PFS and simplified the deployment and operation of this great feature.
Improved Reporting and Visibility
RiOS 3.0 includes better reports, better charts, one second granularity and up to a year of archiving to give you the ability to see details and trends in your WAN traffic.
Port / Application Auto-Discovery
RiOS also includes port auto-discovery to automatically assign application names to the most common ports – if you use custom port assignments, you have the ability to assign names to specific ports yourself.
Global Traffic Reporting
If you have purchased the Central Management Console (CMC), you'll now have global aggregated traffic reporting showing peak, average and 95th percentile traffic summaries, giving you a real time picture of your WAN traffic, and the degree to which Steelhead appliances are optimizing it.
Compatibility with Earlier Versions of RiOS
To facilitate deployment of new 3.0 software in existing Steelhead environments, RiOS 3.0 is compatible with Steelhead appliances running earlier versions of software from 2.1 and higher. The Riverbed Central Management Console running RiOS 3.0 also is compatible with hybrid environments running 2.1.x and 3.x software.
Summary – Faster, Simpler and More Scalable.
In summary, Riverbed offers the fastest, simplest and most scalable WAN acceleration solutions on the market. We also offer the widest range of products designed for the smallest office with only a few people, all the way to enterprise-class solutions to support the world's largest enterprises.
