WAN optimization from Riverbed helps you to realize the promised benefits of adopting virtualization solutions for lower costs, more flexibility, simplified management, and better availability. Virtualization can be an effective new approach for a number of IT initiatives including consolidation, disaster recovery, even helpdesk support, but may require re-architecting the underlying infrastructure and processes. As companies look to efficiently roll out virtualization solutions across the enterprise, bandwidth and latency limitations of the WAN can be detrimental to the success of the effort.

In certain environments where physical hardware can be a limitation, for instance in military environments that require ruggedized hardware, the Virtual Steelhead is a great solution that extends the benefits of virtualization to WAN optimization appliances. In other cases such as mobile construction trailers used by Architecture and Engineering companies (AEC), space can also be a limiting factor which makes it harder to deploy physical Steelhead appliances. In these environments as well, the Virtual Steelhead along with its ability to expand capacity on-demand can be a great option.

A lot of IT departments rely on virtualization to provide cost-savings and management benefits within the Data Center. These management savings also come from using standardized virtualization tools so that all IT infrastructure can be managed easily. With the Virtual Steelhead, WAN optimization benefits can also be controlled and managed using these same standard tools that IT staff are familiar with and trained for.

In consolidation projects, server and storage virtualization is often used to pull hardware from branch offices into a data center where higher utilization and economies of scale can be achieved. The problem is this hurts performance for those branch office users who previously had local access to applications and data, and now rely much more heavily on the WAN. Riverbed overcomes this performance gap, delivering LAN-like performance without requiring expensive upgrades to the WAN connections. The Riverbed Services Platform takes branch consolidation even further, by allowing you to run local services such as printing or security directly on the Steelhead appliance.

Disaster recovery is also challenged by virtualization. Although server virtualization allows services to be more easily restored on new hardware, the ability to effectively protect virtual machines with backup

or replication is often constrained by the capacity of the WAN. Riverbed solves this by reducing the required bandwidth up to 98%, and delivering up to 55x faster data protection. You can get a better recovery point, recovery time, and save money on the network too.

Desktop virtualization too can suffer tremendously from WAN performance problems. Riverbed can improve desktop and application response times for end users, making the difference between unacceptable slowness or a "fast as ever" experience. Even VDI products designed with RDP for use on WAN can benefit greatly from Riverbed optimization.

For Citrix, this is simply enabled by automatically switching to RiOS compression and encryption in place of the less effective native compression and encryption options in the VDI products. Also Riverbed data reduction can performed in memory to efficiently reduce the bandwidth requirements giving high throughput results. Typical results show that up to twice as many desktops can be supported on the same WAN (by halving the bandwidth requirements of each), and end user response times can improve by up to 80% (over uncompressed traffic) making for more satisfactory performance. Further, Citrix desktops can be optimized utilizing QoS markings, to prioritize interactive activities like desktop input and display over less time sensitive operations such as printing.

Read our Desktop Virtualization whitepaper

A primary driver of many virtualization projects is reducing both capital and operating expenses. Riverbed enables the success of these cost cutting initiatives by overcoming performance problems without incurring other new costs such as extensive WAN bandwidth upgrades. You'll get the return on investment you need to proceed.