Riverbed Technology
Encyclopedia
Riverbed Technology 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:
Products=
Riverbed offers products in several areas, all related to network optimization and performance.
Riverbed's flagship product is the Steelhead Appliance which 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 interacts with one or more Steelheads in other locations across the WAN to increase the efficiency and performance of network traffic. Steelhead appliances work together to reduce network traffic in three ways:
The software that runs a Steelhead appliance is called the Riverbed Optimization System or RiOS. The current version of RiOS is 6.5. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Shark & Pilot
Cascade Shark is a turnkey hardware and software solution capable of sustained, multi-gigabit per second recording of network traffic. Cascade Pilot is a network analysis software product that integrates with Cascade Shark appliances and Riverbed Steelhead for a fully distributed, easy to manage packet capture solution.
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.
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.
. Riverbed stock began trading on NASDAQ
September, 21, 2006.
Riverbed has been awarded InfoWorld
Magazine's Technology of the Year for WAN Optimization
every year it has been awarded: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011
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.
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 protocol analyzer product, Wireshark
. Riverbed has assumed corporate sponsorship.
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.
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).
Aptimize Limited
On July 19, 2011, Riverbed acquired Aptimize Limited, a provider of web content optimization technology, based in Wellington, New Zealand.
External Links=
Competition=
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
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
Wide area network
A wide area network is a telecommunication network that covers a broad area . Business and government entities utilize WANs to relay data among employees, clients, buyers, and suppliers from various geographical locations...
.
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.
- Bandwidth optimizationBandwidth optimizationBandwidth optimization is one of many concerns webmasters deal with when hosting web content. Since most web hosts charge by bandwidth used or have an account limit on bandwidth, a prudent webmaster will squeeze and compress their files as much as possible without affecting the content's integrity....
- The amount of traffic that runs across a WAN can be reduced, resulting in a decrease in network bandwidth requirements. - 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 virtualizationVirtualizationVirtualization, in computing, is the creation of a virtual version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, a storage device or network resources....
. - Data protection and Disaster RecoveryDisaster recoveryDisaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster. Disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity...
- 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. - Visibility and Network performance managementNetwork performance management- Factors affecting network performance :Not all networks are the same. As data is broken into component parts for transmission, several factors can affect their delivery....
- Network performance problems and anomalies can be automatically recognized so that problems on those networks can be identified, analyzed, and solved. - Cloud ServerVirtual private serverVirtual private server is a term used by internet hosting services to refer to a virtual machine. The term is used for emphasizing that the virtual machine, although running in software on the same physical computer as other customers' virtual machines, is functionally equivalent to a separate...
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.
Products=
Riverbed offers products in several areas, all related to network optimization and performance.
WAN Optimization
Steelhead AppliancesRiverbed's flagship product is the Steelhead Appliance which is a box that is connected to a wide area network, often behind the WAN router
Router
A router is a device that forwards data packets between computer networks, creating an overlay internetwork. A router is connected to two or more data lines from different networks. When a data packet comes in on one of the lines, the router reads the address information in the packet to determine...
and in front of the Local Area Network
Län
Län and lääni refer to the administrative divisions used in Sweden and previously in Finland. The provinces of Finland were abolished on January 1, 2010....
switch
Switch
In electronics, a switch is an electrical component that can break an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another....
. Each Steelhead appliance interacts with one or more Steelheads in other locations across the WAN to increase the efficiency and performance of network traffic. Steelhead appliances work together to reduce network traffic in three ways:
- 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.
- Transport Streamlining: TCPTransmission Control ProtocolThe Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...
works inefficiently on networks where latencyLatency (engineering)Latency is a measure of time delay experienced in a system, the precise definition of which depends on the system and the time being measured. Latencies may have different meaning in different contexts.-Packet-switched networks:...
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, jitterJitterJitter is the undesired deviation from true periodicity of an assumed periodic signal in electronics and telecommunications, often in relation to a reference clock source. Jitter may be observed in characteristics such as the frequency of successive pulses, the signal amplitude, or phase of...
, packet lossPacket lossPacket loss occurs when one or more packets of data travelling across a computer network fail to reach their destination. Packet loss is distinguished as one of the three main error types encountered in digital communications; the other two being bit error and spurious packets caused due to noise.-...
, 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 layerTransport layerIn computer networking, the transport layer or layer 4 provides end-to-end communication services for applications within a layered architecture of network components and protocols...
protocols, including High-Speed TCPHSTCPHighSpeed TCP is a new congestion control algorithm protocol defined in RFC 3649 for TCP. Standard TCP performs poorly in networks with a large bandwidth delay product. It is unable to fully utilize available bandwidth...
, MX-TCP, and TCP-Westwood. - Application Streamlining: Applications such as Microsoft ExchangeMicrosoft ExchangeMicrosoft Exchange can refer to:* Microsoft Exchange Server, an email server software product from Microsoft* Microsoft Exchange Client, the former companion client software for Exchange Server that was embedded into some versions of Microsoft Windows...
, NFSNFSNFS may mean:* Network File System , the Network File System protocol developed by Sun Microsystems* NFS , a former Icelandic television news service* National Financial Switch, a bank network in India...
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 6.5. 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
Rack unit
A rack unit or U is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting in a 19-inch rack or a 23-inch rack...
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
VMware Server
VMware Server is a free-of-charge virtualization-software server suite developed and supplied by VMware, Inc....
directly on the Steelhead appliance.
Virtual Steelhead
While a standard Steelhead Appliance is a physical device, Virtual Steelhead provides the same RiOS-based WAN Optimization
WAN Optimization
WAN optimization is a collection of techniques for increasing data-transfer efficiencies across wide-area networks. In 2008, the WAN optimization market was estimated to be $1 billion , and it will grow to $4.4 billion according to Gartner, a technology research firm.The most common measures of...
functionality in a VMware ESX
VMware ESX
VMware ESX is an enterprise-level computer virtualization product offered by VMware, Inc. ESX is a component of VMware's larger offering, VMware Infrastructure, and adds management and reliability services to the core server product...
or VMware ESXi environment, without requiring a dedicated physical device.
Steelhead Mobile
A third option for running RiOS is directly on a portable PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
or Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
. 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.
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.
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.
Network Monitoring and Management
CascadeCascade 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.
Cascade Shark & Pilot
Cascade Shark is a turnkey hardware and software solution capable of sustained, multi-gigabit per second recording of network traffic. Cascade Pilot is a network analysis software product that integrates with Cascade Shark appliances and Riverbed Steelhead for a fully distributed, easy to manage packet capture solution.
Cloud Products
Whitewater ApplianceThe Whitewater appliance, introduced in November 2010, is designed to optimize backup data as it is sent from a backup application (e.g. Symantec NetBackup
NetBackup
Veritas NetBackup is an enterprise level heterogeneous backup and recovery suite. It provides cross-platform backup functionality to a large variety of Windows, UNIX and Linux operating systems....
or Backup Exec
Backup Exec
Backup Exec is proprietary backup software currently developed by Symantec. Backup Exec has a long history of being sold from one company to another. Its earliest roots stretch back to the early 1980s when Maynard Electronics created a bundle of software drivers to help sell their tape drive...
) into a public storage cloud
Cloud
A cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water and/or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. They are also known as aerosols. Clouds in Earth's atmosphere are studied in the cloud physics branch of meteorology...
. 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.
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
Virtual private cloud
A Virtual Private Cloud is a private cloud existing within a shared or public cloud .Amazon Web Services launched Amazon Virtual Private Cloud on 2009-08-26, which allows the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud service to be connected to legacy infrastructure over an IPsec virtual private network...
(VPC) environments.
Corporate History
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 CanadaEnvironment Canada
Environment Canada , legally incorporated as the Department of the Environment under the Department of the Environment Act Environment Canada (EC) (French: Environnement Canada), legally incorporated as the Department of the Environment under the Department of the Environment Act Environment...
. Riverbed stock began trading on NASDAQ
NASDAQ
The NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
September, 21, 2006.
Riverbed has been awarded InfoWorld
InfoWorld
InfoWorld is an information technology online media and events business operating under the umbrella of InfoWorld Media Group, a division of IDG...
Magazine's Technology of the Year for WAN Optimization
WAN Optimization
WAN optimization is a collection of techniques for increasing data-transfer efficiencies across wide-area networks. In 2008, the WAN optimization market was estimated to be $1 billion , and it will grow to $4.4 billion according to Gartner, a technology research firm.The most common measures of...
every year it has been awarded: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011
Acquisition History
Mazu NetworksOn 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.
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
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
network protocol analyzer product, Wireshark
Wireshark
Wireshark is a free and open-source packet analyzer. It is used for network troubleshooting, analysis, software and communications protocol development, and education...
. Riverbed has assumed corporate sponsorship.
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
Space Communications Protocol Specifications
The Space Communications Protocol Specifications are a set of extensions to existing protocols and new protocols developed by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems to improve performance of Internet protocols in space environments...
(SCPS), which is used in most US Department of Defense communications satellites.
Zeus Technology
On July 19, 2011, Riverbed acquired Zeus Technology
Zeus Technology
Zeus Technology, Ltd. is a software company based in Cambridge, England. Zeus Technology, Inc. is a wholly owned US subsidiary.- Timeline :...
, 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
Application delivery controller
An application delivery controller is a network device in the datacenter that helps perform common tasks done by web sites in an effort to remove load from the web servers themselves. Many also provide load balancing. They usually sit between the firewall/router and the web farm. The ADC is in...
(vADC).
Aptimize Limited
On July 19, 2011, Riverbed acquired Aptimize Limited, a provider of web content optimization technology, based in Wellington, New Zealand.
Riverbed Certified Solutions Professional (RCSP)
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.Riverbed Certified Solutions Associate (RCSA)
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.External Links=
- "Top 10 Fastest-Growing Tech Companies: #3", Forbes.com, 16 Feb 2011. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
- "The Muhammad Ali of Cloud Computing", Business Week, 27 January 2011. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
- "CRN's Data Center 100: #24", CRN Web Site, 21 January 2011. Retrieved 18-March 2011.
- "InfoWorld's 2011 Technology of the Year Award Winners: Best WAN Accelerator", InfoWorld, 12 January 2011. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
- "America's Fastest Growing Tech Companies: #2", Forbes, 1 April 2010. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
Competition=
- Riverbed's main competitors in WAN Optimization include Blue CoatBlue Coat SystemsBlue Coat Systems Inc. is a network security and network management company based in Sunnyvale, California, United States.It identifies itself as an application delivery network specialist...
, CiscoCiscoCisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore...
, Citrix, Juniper NetworksJuniper NetworksJuniper Networks is an information technology and computer networking products multinational company, founded in 1996. It is head quartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA. The company designs and sells high-performance Internet Protocol network products and services...
, and Silver PeakSilver Peak SystemsSilver Peak Systems designs and manufactures WAN optimization products. Silver Peak's global headquarters is located in Santa Clara, California. Silver Peak was founded in 2004 by David Hughes, who holds a PhD from Wollongong University and has been awarded 35 patents...
.