Riverbed Integrates VMware vSphere

Riverbed
Technology
announced the integration of VMware
vSphere
into its Riverbed Steelhead EX model appliances.

This integration
provides organizations a single platform for simplified, centralized
management of distributed virtual services at a lower TCO. When
combined with the Granite edge virtual server infrastructure, the
solution allows organizations to leverage the investments they have
made in the data center and extend control and policy boundaries to
the edge of the network. This approach reduces operating costs by
centralizing and streamlining management of virtual services and
data, and delivering services wherever and whenever needed without
compromising performance.

Enterprises are
consolidating and leveraging virtualization and cloud technologies to
achieve greater cost efficiency, improve data protection, and manage
resources centrally. At the same time, IT teams are challenged to
deliver services to branches and end users as needed, while
maintaining performance quality and the end-user experience. They
want solutions that allow for the centralization of data with local
execution, which Steelhead EX appliances running VMware vSphere and
Granite deliver. It also provides a pathway for full virtualization
and the realization of the software defined data center.

"Enterprises
are building efficient, virtualized data centers to improve business
agility in the face of an explosion of users, devices and data. By
extending the virtual edge of the data center all the way to the
branch, enterprises now have a holistic approach to creating a data
center without walls. End users get the speed and performance they
require, while IT manages from a simplified consolidated
architecture. The result is a leaner, more productive business that
enjoys end-to-end performance, reliability and security from the data
center to the edge,"
said Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at Enterprise
Strategy Group.

Riverbed is
enhancing the Virtual Services Platform featured on Steelhead EX
through an integration of vSphere 5. This integration enables
applications and services required in branch offices to be operated
and managed on the virtual server solution directly on a Steelhead
WAN optimization appliance. Locally executed VM running on Steelhead
EX appliances can now be centrally managed by the VMware vSphere
vCenter Server,
providing organizations a single platform for simplified, centralized
management of distributed virtual services at a lower TCO. Combined
with the Granite edge-VSI solution, organizations can consolidate and
manage VMware vSphere-based virtual servers in the data center, yet
boot and utilize required services across a WAN over distance. This
new integration and support enables users to instantly provision
branch services and storage for increased agility, high availability
and improved DR.

"Riverbed
is a strategic partner that shares our software-defined data center
vision. The software-defined data center is designed to deliver on
the promise of an agile, elastic, efficient, and reliable virtualized
IT environment. Riverbed is extending the vision by projecting
software-defined infrastructure to the edge where it can be managed
and provisioned centrally while delivering a LAN
experience,"
said Allwyn Sequeira, VP and CTO, Networking and Security, VMware.

Bringing vSphere to
the Steelhead product family will enable customers to use the
virtualization investments they’ve already made in the data center.
The ability to project the virtual edge of the data center breaks
down the worldview that infrastructure in the data center was
distinct and different than infrastructure in the branch. Customers
can manage virtualized branch infrastructure as an integrated
extension of the data center.

"As
a leading IT systems integrator with offices nationwide, Trace3 is
benefitting from the integration of VMware vSphere Hypervisor on the
Steelhead EX appliance both as a customer of the solution and as a
partner,"
said David Titov, director of professional services at Trace3. "Our
own infrastructure team has been able to consolidate all edge servers
back to our data center, yet boot and project needed services over
the WAN as needed without the expense of deploying local IT
resources. Trace3 customers have also long wanted to extend the
virtual edge of the data center to the branch, and we can now deliver
this all-in-one branch office solution thanks to Riverbed."

"Riverbed
is extending the ability for enterprises to operate and deliver IT
services at the edge,"
said John Martin, SVP of product management at Riverbed. "With
this new solution, enterprises can deploy servers in the data center
but execute at the edge. This allows them to quickly create complete
virtual data centers, simplify management and provisioning while also
extending those same benefits to branch offices."

The
new Steelhead EX appliance is expected
to be available in Q4 2012.