Riverbed Gets Governmental With Global Protocols Acquisition

Riverbed is looking to solidify its hold in the Federal Market by acquiring Global Protocols LLC. Simply put, Global Protocols provides application performance in satellite networks, which is critical to helping government organizations leverage the Space Communications Protocol Standards (SCPS). Channel implications? Maybe…

The VAR Guy hears you — you’re asking — how does SCPS help out anyone in the channel? Apparently, this addition of the Global Protocol’s flagship technology (SkipWare) is now inside your Riverbed WAN optimization. That means partners with Riverbed will now have a key chip to play when offering optimized satellite network solutions.

Quick refresher for readers: SCPS is a “protocol solution” developed my NASA and the US Space Command, but it’s also used by the (surprise) military and any other organizations that use satellite networking. The problem with satellite networking is performance degradation due to weather can have hazardous effects. SkipWare had provided the Department of Defense, military and civilian agencies to meet reliability and performance standards through software magic. Now Riverbed will step into that space and apply that layer of software to their product line.

Riverbed and Global Protocols have worked together closely since 2008 and heavily integrated their products. Now Steelhead appliances will have SkipWare functionality inside, with the Riverbed name. Riverbed sees this acquisition as a strategic one, noting that enterprises and other large governmental organizations will need to increasingly rely on improved and secure remote-cloud capabilities.

Sign up for The VAR Guy’s Weekly Newsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Follow The VAR Guy via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Follow experts at VARtweet. Read The VAR Guy’s editorial disclosures here.