Riverbed Technology announced a series of enhancements for its SteelHead WAN optimization solution for accelerating application performance to the Microsoft Azure cloud. Connections into Azure and be accelerated and optimized by spinning up a virtual SteelHead in the Microsoft cloud to sync with a SteelHead at an enterprise data center or branch office. In addition to de-duplicating traffic traversing the WAN, Riverbed can identify over 1,000 different applications and optimize the transfer for each. There are also Azure-specific use cases, such as Office 365 Mailbox Migration to Azure or Hyper-V replication to Azure, which can be significantly accelerated by the SteelHead solution.
Riverbed’s SteelHead already supported AWS and other public clouds.
What’s New in SteelHead 8.6
- Now available for Microsoft Azure: SteelHead CX cloud instances are now available as a subscription-based offering in Microsoft Azure, making SteelHead available for 90% of public cloud deployments. SteelHead enables enterprises to host their applications with the cloud vendor that best meets their business
- Enterprise-scale SteelHead for virtual environments and private/hybrid clouds: When virtualized infrastructure is required, IT can avoid multiple SteelHead virtual devices and simplify their network architecture with SteelHead CX 7055V, a new virtual appliance that can optimize up to 1Gbps of traffic. The SteelHead CX 7055v simplifies deployment in private cloud architectures and enterprise-scale virtualized datacenters with a single virtualized 1G appliance deployed on a standard server.
- App Engine upgrade for greater control over all network traffic: SteelHead users can now set policies and classes for over 1,100 applications. As a result, SteelHead now enables more granular control over all network traffic, automatically reserving bandwidth for business-critical apps and steering them on to low-latency, uncongested links. This allows IT to align application delivery more directly with business needs.
- A higher-performance mid-range application acceleration platform: For mid-range enterprise deployments, the new CX570 and CX770 deliver higher performance and better diagnostics and are simple to upgrade at the same price as their predecessors, CX555 and CX755.
Riverbed also introduced SteelHead CX 7055v, an enterprise-scale virtual solution delivering up to 1 Gbps of optimized traffic for private and hybrid clouds.
“SteelHead is the dominant platform for accelerating business applications across enterprise networks. Our customers are now deploying applications in multiple clouds and scaling their network infrastructure to 1Gbps to ensure the highest level of user experience at all locations. SteelHead 8.6 simplifies these deployment challenges by allowing our customers to deliver consistent application performance across an increasingly dynamic IT environment,” said Paul O’Farrell, Senior Vice President and General Manager, SteelHead Products Group at Riverbed. “With SteelHead 8.6, enterprises can enjoy an enhanced user experience for the full range of Microsoft business apps and Microsoft Azure-based cloud workloads.”
“As Microsoft Azure works to erase the boundaries between cloud development and operational management, we look to partners like Riverbed to provide the application performance infrastructure that optimizes the end user’s experience when apps are delivered via the cloud,” said Garth Fort, General Manager of System Center and Virtualization, Microsoft Corporation. “In a cloud-first world, applications should be accessed and delivered quickly − without the challenges of application latency, competition among applications, and bandwidth restrictions. This is what’s required for the best user experience in today’s app-driven economy, and that’s what Riverbed is all about.”