Riverbed Integrates Steelhead, Cascade with App Management Solution

WAN optimization and performance management provider Riverbed (RVBD) took the wraps off a new integrated solution it said can deliver application acceleration anywhere and supply organizations with enhanced application intelligence and network visibility.

Riverbed announced the Cascade Profiler and Shark 10.5 solution Nov. 18 at its Analyst Day 2013 in San Francisco, calling it a “milestone” in the integration of its Steelhead WAN optimization line and its Cascade network performance management (NPM) family. The solution enables operations teams to prioritize business-critical applications over less-critical applications to ensure performance and reduce the risk and impact of application downtime, according to Riverbed. With detailed application visibility, IT teams can guarantee the quality of service and performance of business-critical applications that businesses demand, the company said.

Cascade 10.5 is available now while fully enabled Cascade Shark on Steelhead EX is expected to be generally available before the end of the year.

“Today’s data center environment is a mix of diverse users, mobile devices and cloud innovations,” said Paul Brady, Riverbed performance management senior vice president and general manager. “IT managers require the tools necessary to monitor, manage and accelerate application performance anywhere and everywhere.”

According to Riverbed, Cascade Profile and Shark 10.5 integrated with Steelhead widens the capabilities of their existing enterprise-wide Steelhead footprint without additional hardware or probes to get increased visibility and control.

The solution’s key features include:

“Whether you’re monitoring VoIP traffic, peer-to-peer collaboration or business-critical web applications, with Riverbed, you can stay ahead of problems and ensure your business priorities dictate how your network behaves and not the other way around,” said Brady.

Riverbed proclaimed at its Analyst Day event that its four-year blueprint to transform from a single-product vendor to a platform company was complete. With an expanded product set, Riverbed said it has positioned itself to capitalize on the application performance infrastructure market, a segment estimated to be 10 times larger than its core $1 billion WAN optimization sector.