Riverbed Technology, the application performance company, today announced major updates to its SD-WAN offering Riverbed SteelConnect, an app-defined, cloud networking solution that provides an intelligent and simplified approach to designing, deploying and managing distributed networks.
As part of the’s announcement, SteelConnect now supports complex enterprise environments and dramatically simplifies the implementation of large-scale SD-WAN deployments in the data center with non-disruptive network integration.
Riverbed also announced availability of a new line of SteelHead SD models, which combines SteelConnect and industry-leading WAN optimization into a streamlined single-device solution, providing network-agility and one-click connectivity into Microsoft Azure and AWS for superior app and cloud performance.
The cloud continues to grow at a rapid pace, with spending on public cloud services expected to reach $247 Billion in 2017 (up 18 percent from 2016), and $383 Billion by 2020, according to Gartner. While there’s been major advancements in cloud computing, cloud storage and cloud apps, traditional networking has been left behind. In fact, Gartner says 50% of cloud deployments will suffer from business-impacting performance issues, requiring extensive network redesign.
“In today’s cloud era, legacy approaches to networking which are hardware-centric, rigid and error-prone are preventing businesses from moving forward,” said Paul O’Farrell, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Riverbed’s SteelConnect, SteelHead, and SteelFusion business units. “With today’s SteelConnect and SteelHead SD launches, Riverbed is taking cloud networking one step further, with a new integrated offering driven by customer demand, and updates that deliver greater scalability, and superior network agility and cloud performance.”
Simplifying large-scale SD-WAN deployment
The new SteelConnect SDI-5030 Data Center Gateway Appliances simplify the deployment of SD-WAN for large-scale global networks. While other SD-WAN solutions can require thousands of line of configuration updates and/or firmware upgrades to core data center routers, SteelConnect benefits from integration with the battle-tested Riverbed Interceptor appliance to non-disruptively integrate and orchestrate SD-WAN and WAN Optimization services into data center networks, with elastic scale and high-availability to support application delivery across thousands of remote locations.
Combining SD-WAN and WAN-Optimization capabilities
Riverbed SteelConnect and industry-leading SteelHead WAN optimization work together to exchange application identification and classification information to ensure an end-to-end application-centric solution across the network and into the cloud. This is in contrast to dual-vendor approaches where the fidelity of application identity is compromised as packets transmit between discrete network services.
The new line of SteelHead SD models (570-SD, 770-SD & 3070-SD) integrates SD-WAN and WAN optimization services into a streamlined single-device offering. By deploying a unified solution combining SD-WAN (SteelConnect) and WAN optimization (SteelHead), enterprises can streamline and simplify their approach to cloud networking, drive network agility and deliver superior performance for on-premises and cloud-based applications with ease.