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Riverbed Technology (Nasdaq: RVBD) is a technology company that specializes in improving the performance of networks and networked applications. It was founded May 23, 2002 by Jerry Kennelly and Steve McCanne in San Francisco, California where its world headquarters remains. Riverbed's flagship product is the Steelhead Appliance, a networking appliance that combines several techniques to optimize data traffic and bandwidth utilization across a Wide Area Network.

Riverbed products are often deployed to solve network bandwidth and performance problems in these areas of technology:

  • Application acceleration - Applications that require access to resources across a WAN can run faster.[1]
  • Bandwidth optimization - The amount of traffic that runs across a WAN can be reduced, resulting in a decrease in network bandwidth requirements.[2]
  • Data center, branch office and server consolidation - The amount of computer and storage equipment required to support a branch office or remote location can be reduced through consolidation and virtualization.[3]
  • Data protection and Disaster Recovery - The time required to complete a backup cycle and to replicate that data offsite can be reduced, resulting in more data backed up in less time.[4]
  • Visibility and Network performance management - Network performance problems and anomalies can be automatically recognized so that problems on those networks can be identified, analyzed, and solved.[5]
  • Cloud Server and Storage Acceleration - Improve network performance into private and public clouds, enabling users to make better use of remote cloud-based computing and storage resources.[6]
Riverbed Technology, Inc
Company typePublic (Nasdaq: RVBD)
IndustryNetworking hardware
FoundedMay 23, 2002
Headquarters
United States San Francisco, California
,
USA
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Jerry Kennelly (CEO)

Steve McCanne (CTO)
Eric Wolford (SVP Marketing and Business Development)
Randy S. Gottfried (CFO)
David M. Peranich (SVP Worldwide Sales)
Gordon Chaffee (VP of Engineering)

Stephen R. Smoot (VP of Technical Operations)
RevenueIncrease US$551.9 million (2010)[7]
Increase US$56.2 million (2010)[7]
Increase US$34.2 million (2010)[7]
Total assetsUS$736.1 million (2010)[7]
Total equityUS$537.4 million (2010)[7]
Number of employees
1244 (December, 2010)[7]
Websitewww.riverbed.com

Products

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Riverbed offers products in several areas, all related to network optimization and performance.

WAN Optimization

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Steelhead Appliances
Riverbed's flagship product is the Steelhead appliance. A Steelhead Appliance is a box that is connected to a wide area network, often behind the WAN router and in front of the Local Area Network switch. Each Steelhead appliance connects with one or more Steelheads in other locations to optimize network traffic. Steelhead appliances work together to reduce network traffic in three ways:

  1. Data Streamlining: Primarily, data streamlining involves the removal of redundant data from WAN traffic. In place of redundant data, the Steelhead sends a reference to the redundant data that has already been stored on the remote Steelhead appliance, which can then insert the proper data back into the data stream. The result is a significant reduction in data that gets sent across the network. Steelhead appliances recognize and eliminate duplicated data regardless of the direction in which it is sent, the user who sends it, or the application that sent the data.[8]
  2. Transport Streamlining: TCP works inefficiently on networks where latency is high. Transport streamlining combines the use of TCP options and Riverbed proprietary technology to reduce or eliminate the impact of high latency, limited TCP window size, jitter, packet loss, and out-of-order packet delivery in order to improve overall data transfer performance and throughput. Transport streamlining also includes the option to introduce alternative transport layer protocols, including High-Speed TCP, MX-TCP, and TCP-Westwood.
  3. Application Streamlining: Applications such as Microsoft Exchange, NFS and CIFS require complex and chatty interactions between clients and servers, and these chatty interactions result in slow performance in high latency network environments. Some application protocols may require hundreds or thousands of round-trip interactions in order to transfer a relatively small amount of data. Application streamlining reduces the number of round-trips over the WAN to reduce or eliminate the impact of high latency. Application streamlining also addresses any application-specific data encoding or encryption mechanisms so that data deduplication mechanisms can be applied on the original data format.

The software that runs a Steelhead appliance is called the Riverbed Optimization System or RiOS. The current version of RiOS is 9.0.1a. There are more than 20 different models of Steelhead appliances available, each with a different capacity for connections and data traffic, ranging from a small desktop unit up to a high-end 3U data center model with solid state disks.

Many Steelhead Appliance models support the Riverbed Services Platform (RSP), which enables them to run as many as five virtual machines in VMware Server directly on the Steelhead appliance.[8]

Virtual Steelhead
While a standard Steelhead Appliance is a physical device, Virtual Steelhead provides the same RiOS-based WAN Optimization functionality in a VMware ESX or VMware ESXi environment, without requiring a dedicated physical device.[9]

Steelhead Mobile
A third option for running RiOS is directly on a portable PC or Macintosh. Steelhead Mobile runs directly on the computer, and optimizes any WAN traffic that goes back to a data center where there is a Steelhead Appliance it can pair with.[10]

Central Management Console (CMC)
The CMC simplifies the process of deploying, configuring, and managing Steelhead appliances. Administrators can manage, deploy, configure, update, and monitor as many as 2,000 Steelhead appliances or Virtual Steelheads from one web-based interface. Deploying, configuring, updating, and monitoring are all done through one web-based interface. The CMC is available either as a physical or a virtual device.[11]

Interceptor
The Interceptor appliance extends the scaling and high-availability capabilities of Steelhead appliances to meet the requirements of the largest and most complex enterprise networks and data center environments. It clusters up to 25 Steelhead appliances so they can work together seamlessly to scale out to a million TCP connections and up to 12 Gbps of throughput.[12]

Network Monitoring and Management

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Cascade
Cascade is an agentless solution for network and application visibility. Cascade does its work through a combination of capturing network packets and collecting network traffic, flow and packet analysis data from switches, routers, and other devices. It then calculates performance metrics, and sends alerts when network performance goes outside of expected norms.

Cascade consists of several components:

  • Cascade Gateway collects network flow data from devices on the network.
  • Cascade Sensor inspects packets and gathers application performance information in the data center, and is available as either a physical device, or as Cascade Sensor-VE, a virtual version that runs on the Riverbed Services Platform (RSP).
  • Cascade Profiler correlates information collected by these devices, provides reporting and analysis of network problems and sends performance and security alerts.[13]

Cascade Shark & Pilot
Cascade Shark is a turnkey hardware and software solution capable of sustained, multi-gigabit per second recording of network traffic.[14] Cascade Pilot is a network analysis software product that seamlessly and securely integrates with Cascade Shark appliances and Riverbed Steelhead for a fully distributed, easy to manage packet capture solution. [15]

Cloud Products

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Whitewater Appliance
The Whitewater appliance, introduced in November 2010, is designed to optimize backup data as it is sent from a backup application (e.g. Symantec NetBackup or Backup Exec) into a public storage cloud. The 1.0 release works with Amazon AWS; later releases will support other cloud providers. Whitewater is a single-ended appliance; data is deduplicated, compressed, and encrypted with AES-256 on the Whitewater appliance and then sent across the WAN to the storage cloud provider for long-term storage in that form.[16]

Cloud Steelhead
The Cloud Steelhead appliance, also introduced in November 2010, provides WAN optimization for traffic going between users or an enterprise data center and a public cloud. Currently Amazon Web Services’ Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) environments.[17]

Company Information

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Corporate History

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Riverbed Technology was founded May 23, 2002 by Jerry Kennelly, who is currently CEO, and Steve McCanne, currently CTO. The original name of the company was NBT (Next Big Thing) Technology, and it was renamed to Riverbed Technology in 2003. Jerry and Steve led internal development of the first Steelhead appliances: the 500, 1000, 2000, and 5000 models. The first product was shipped in April, 2004 to Environment Canada. Riverbed stock began trading September, 21, 2006[18].

Riverbed has been awarded InfoWorld Magazine's Technology of the Year for WAN Optimization every year it has been awarded: 2005[19], 2006, 2007[20], 2008[21], 2009[22], and 2011[23]

Acquisition History

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Mazu Networks
On February 20, 2009, Riverbed announced the completion of the acquisition of Mazu Networks. The Mazu products, which were renamed Cascade, analyze network traffic to provide information about the interactions of and dependencies between users, applications and systems. This acquisition enabled Riverbed to add IT infrastructure performance solutions to its product portfolio.[24]

CACE Technologies
On October 21, 2010, Riverbed acquired CACE Technologies, and folded their Shark network analysis product and Pilot interface product into the Riverbed product suite. CACE was also the corporate sponsor of the open source network management product, Wireshark. Riverbed has assumed corporate sponsorship.[25]

Global Protocols
In November, 2010, Riverbed acquired Global Protocols, LLC, a provider of Satellite optimization to the defense marketplace. Global Protocols is known for their SkipWare product, a proprietary commercial implementation of the Space Communications Protocol Specifications (SCPS), which is used in most US Department of Defense communications satellites. [26]

Zeus Technology
On July 19, 2011, Riverbed acquired Zeus Technology, a provider of high-performance software-based load balancing and traffic management solutions for virtual and cloud environments. Their primary product is the Zeus Virtual Application Delivery Controller (vADC).[27]

Aptimize Limited
On July 19, 2011, Riverbed acquired Aptimize Limited, a provider of web content optimization technology, based in Wellington, New Zealand. [28]

Certification Programs

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Riverbed Certified Solutions Professional (RCSP)

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The RCSP certificate is granted to individuals that demonstrate strong knowledge and experience in the theory, configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting of the Riverbed RiOS product suite. While there are no set requirements prior to taking the exam, many candidates that have passed the RCSP exam have typically taken the Riverbed training classes and have also had at least six months of hands-on experience with Riverbed products. [29]

Riverbed Certified Solutions Associate (RCSA)

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The RCSA certificate is granted to individuals that demonstrate knowledge and experience in the theory, configuration, maintenance, and troubleshooting of the RiOS product suite. While there are no set requirements prior to taking the exam, candidates that have taken Riverbed training classes, and have had at least three months of hands-on experience with Riverbed products, have a significantly higher chance of passing the qualifying exam.[29]

External Links

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Competition

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Notes

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  1. ^ Enterprise Services Group. White Paper, visited March 28, 2011.
  2. ^ WAN Optimization.org web site WAN Optimization Technology, visited March 28, 2011.
  3. ^ Computerworld Magazine web site, Minimize Server Consolidation Mistakes, visited March 28, 2011.
  4. ^ Network Computing Magazine web site Riverbed Ramps Up Disaster Recovery, visited March 28, 2011.
  5. ^ IDG Connect web site Achieving Business Value with Network and Application Visibility, visited March 28, 2011.
  6. ^ Enterprise Networking Planet web site Riverbed Whitewater Expands Cloud Acceleration and Storage, visited March 28, 2011.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Hoovers web site Riverbed Technology, Inc., visited 17 March 2011.
  8. ^ a b Riverbed Web Site Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) 6.0 - A Technical Overview, visited 17 March 2011.
  9. ^ Riverbed web site Virtual Steelhead, visited 17 March 2011.
  10. ^ Riverbed web site Steelhead Mobile, visited 17 March 2011.
  11. ^ Riverbed web site Central Management Console, visited 17 March 2011.
  12. ^ Riverbed web site Interceptor, visited 17 March 2011.
  13. ^ Riverbed web site Cascade, visited 17 March 2011.
  14. ^ Riverbed web site Cascade Shark, visited 17 March 2011.
  15. ^ Riverbed web site Cascade Pilot, visited 17 March 2011.
  16. ^ Riverbed web site Cloud Data Protection for Backup, Archive, and Disaster Recovery, visited 17 March 2011.
  17. ^ Riverbed web site Cloud Steelhead, visited 17 March 2011.
  18. ^ Yahoo Finance web site Riverbed Profile Page, visited 14 March 2011.
  19. ^ Riverbed web site Riverbed Advertisement, visited 17 March 2011.
  20. ^ InfoWorld web site Riverbed Steelhead 3.0, visited 17 March, 2011.
  21. ^ InfoWorld web site Riverbed Steelhead Appliance, visited 17 March 2011.
  22. ^ InfoWorld web site InfoWorld 2009 Technology of the Year Winners, visited 17 March 2011.
  23. ^ InfoWorld web site InfoWorld 2011 Technology of the Year Winners, visited 17 March 2011.
  24. ^ Riverbed web site Riverbed Completes Acquisition of Mazu Networks, visited 17 March 2011.
  25. ^ Riverbed web site Riverbed Expands Further Into The Application-Aware Network Performance Management Market with the Acquisition of CACE Technologies, visited 17 March 2011.
  26. ^ Riverbed web site Riverbed Solidifies Federal Market Leadership With The Acquisition of Global Protocols LLC, visited 17 March 2011.
  27. ^ Techcrunch Web Site Riverbed acquires Zeus for $140m – A win for Cambridge, DFJ Esprit and SEP, visited August 5, 2011.
  28. ^ The Register web site Riverbed pumps up software with Zeus, Aptimize buys, visited August 5, 2011.
  29. ^ a b Riverbed web site Certification, visited 17 March 2011.
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