Riverbed offers the most scalable and broadest WAN optimization solution available. Whether you are looking for WAN optimization, application acceleration, Wide Area File Services (WAFS), or Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), Riverbed provides the broadest and best performing products which are also the easiest to integrate into virtually any enterprise network.

With our award-winning data reduction, WAN optimization, and application-level latency optimizations, along with remote office file and management functionality, Riverbed provides a comprehensive solution for enterprises looking to simplify IT, consolidate infrastructure, and accelerate their applications. In addition to offering the best performing solution available, Riverbed delivers the single solution that scales across the broadest range of applications and network topologies.

RiOS

The Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS™) is the software platform that powers our award-winning line of Steelhead® appliances. Using the power of Steelhead appliances running RiOS, organizations of all sizes around the world have been able to dramatically simplify, accelerate, and consolidate their IT infrastructure. RiOS 6.1 is Riverbed’s latest optimization system software release and extends our leadership in the WAN optimization category by further increasing performance, scalability, and simplicity.

The latest RiOS release offers customers unparalleled flexibility for their WAN optimization deployment, spanning corporate datacenters, branch offices, and mobile workers. The enhanced Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) lets customers run additional services and applications with VMware on a protected partition on Steelhead appliances. This enables further branch server consolidation and simplified administration, delivering significant savings to customers. Other recent features include optimization for Lotus Notes, encrypted MAPI, and replication for business continuity, as well as SMB Signing support.

Any Steelhead appliance can be upgraded to take advantage of these new capabilities.

RiOS for Mobile Users

With the release of Steelhead Mobile, Riverbed has enabled RiOS to scale all the way down to a single user. Unlike other vendors who have tried to cobble together a solution though different acquisitions, Riverbed has taken its proven platform and optimized it for mobile workers. Steelhead Mobile enables individual users to get the same LAN-like application performance that they have come to expect from Steelhead appliances. By utilizing the same platform as the appliances, Steelhead Mobile plugs into the existing infrastructure with little or no additional work. Steelhead Mobile uses RiOS's enhanced auto-discovery features to automatically find the Steelhead appliance in the data center which is needed to accelerate files and applications. RiOS for Steelhead Mobile has all of the key features of RiOS v5.5, although not all of the application modules are included. For more information, download the RiOS 6.1 Feature Brief.

Learn More About our Key Technologies

Technology	Description	Affects	Result
Data Streamlining	Eliminates redundant bytes from transfers	All TCP Traffic, including SSL	WAN bandwidth utilization reduced by 60% to 95% Bandwidth optimized for specific applications, including latency sensitive applications like VoIP, video, and Citrix
	Prioritizes application traffic	All WAN Traffic (TCP and UDP)
Transport Streamlining	Eliminates transport protocol inefficiencies	All TCP Traffic, including SSL	Applications typically accelerated by 5 to 50x, and often up to 100x, even SSL-encrypted traffic Up to 98% reduction in packet roundtrips
Application Streamlining	Reduces WAN round trips at the application layer	Specific Applications (Click here for details)
Management Streamlining	Enables transparent deployment and centralized management	Management of Steelhead appliances	Fewer IT resources required for deployment and management

 

See Technical Feature Summary Table for more information.

While some other approaches solve one or two aspects of application acceleration such as packet compression, Quality of Service (QoS), or WAFS (a.k.a. file caching), Riverbed has consistently stayed ahead of the market by attacking the three root causes of poor wide-area application performance simultaneously:

• Insufficient WAN bandwidth
• Inefficient transport protocols
• Inefficient application protocols

Steelhead Appliances Accelerate All Applications

With RiOS, all key enterprise applications are accelerated across the WAN, many to LAN-like performance. The following chart shows the expected range of acceleration for some of the popular applications used by our customers:

Download the RiOS 6.1 Feature Brief to learn more.