Riverbed Moves into the Cloud

Riverbed Technology is moving to address this issue with the launch of Riverbed Cloud Steelhead, an implementation of the company’s wide area network (WAN) optimization offering designed specifically for the cloud, and Riverbed Whitewater, a new appliance offering that integrates on-premise storage systems with cloud computing platforms at a very high speed.

Eric Wolford, Riverbed senior vice president of marketing and business development, said Riverbed is taking care to make sure that its existing Steelhead appliance can be integrated with its new cloud computing offerings because cloud computing by definition is going to be hybrid. Customers will have applications and IT assets deployed in both private and public cloud computing scenarios that will need to be efficiently linked using the fastest network possible. The new Riverbed offerings, he said, help cloud computing applications installed on public cloud infrastructure run as much as 20 times faster over a wide area connection.

To facilitate that process, Riverbed has also developed the Steelhead Discovery Agent, which keeps track of virtual and physical servers as they move across a hybrid cloud.

The initial Riverbed Cloud Steelhead offering will support the Amazon EC2 and Virtual Cloud Platforms. Support for additional cloud computing platforms will be forthcoming. Pricing for the Riverbed service will be based on a subscription model that customers can manage via a new Riverbed Cloud Portal.

The Riverbed Whitewater appliance, which includes built-in data deduplication and encryption capabilities, supports cloud storage services from EMC, AT&T and Amazon.