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Riverbed announces SteelFusion 3.0

SteelFusion radically improves branch economics by fusing servers, storage, virtualisation and networking into a single solution speeding provisioning by up to 30x and recovery by up to 96x


Pretoria, 17 Apr 2014
SteelFusion 3.0
SteelFusion 3.0

Riverbed Technology, the leader in application performance infrastructure, announced Riverbed SteelFusion 3.0 (formerly known as Riverbed Granite), the first branch converged infrastructure that centralises data in the data centre and delivers local performance and nearly instant recovery at the branch.

SteelFusion fuses branch servers, storage, networking, and virtualisation infrastructure into a single solution that, as measured by Taneja Group, reduces the average time to provision branch services by 30x (from five hours to 10 minutes) and recovery from branch outages by 96x (from 24 hours to 15 minutes)[1]. With SteelFusion 3.0, Riverbed raises the bar with even faster branch recovery, higher data capacity, and faster performance.

The typical data centre serves 55 branches[2] and only eight percent of these branches have fully consolidated IT infrastructure[3]. As a result, according to IDC, more than $4 billion is being spent on remote office infrastructure and maintenance every year.

All of the islands of distributed branch infrastructure have been necessary to meet local performance and reliability needs to ensure the productivity of employees working in branch offices; however, they are costly and inefficient to manage. In addition, companies rarely have the expertise in branches to maintain and protect data in such distributed infrastructure, and when branch offices suffer outages due to natural or manmade disasters, employee productivity and data are compromised and company revenue is impacted.

Riverbed pioneered the branch converged infrastructure market to address these problems by launching Riverbed Granite, now called Riverbed SteelFusion. To date, the solution is helping customers centralise and protect an estimated 47 petabytes of branch data in their data centre and consolidate an estimated 87 000 branch servers. SteelFusion has been named InfoWorld Technology of the Year for two straight years.

"With more and more branches and data, organisations are struggling with the cost and inefficiency of managing islands of infrastructure - servers, applications and storage - outside the data centre. Riverbed developed the first solution that delivers all the benefits of converged infrastructure found in the data centre, such as performance, security, scalability, better disaster recovery, and manageability, but optimised for the unique requirements of the branch," said Christo Briedenhan, Regional Director of Riverbed Technology. "With SteelFusion, Riverbed has completely changed the game with branch IT infrastructure. Businesses get the best of both worlds: centralizing data to eliminate branch downtime, improve data security, and lower TCO while still delivering local access to apps and data for branch workers."

With the SteelFusion 3.0 release, Riverbed delivers:

* 6x performance gain in the branch with a new high-end appliance. With a 6x performance gain over the previous high-end SteelFusion appliance, the new SteelFusion 1360P appliance ensures users get faster, local performance for storage-intensive workloads like Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and CAD/CAM applications.

* 3x increase in data-capacity at the data centre with a new higher capacity controller appliance. Higher capacity on the storage delivery controller, the SteelFusion Core 3000, means storage administrators can now support up to 100TB consolidated data, a 3x improvement over the previous high of 35TB supported. This enables scalability for global enterprise companies looking to consolidate their data and applications.

* Enhanced recovery innovation. A new predictive pre-fetch capability on the converged appliance, the Branch Recovery Agent further reduces recovery time from major outages. This ensures employees can remain productive with constant access to applications and data, despite major disasters.

* Simplified operations. Server, virtualisation, and backup administrators will see an improved scale-out architecture with pooled management of storage delivery controllers. A new recovery agent for the converged appliance makes it simpler and faster for administrators to recover a branch from a major outage.

* Even better NetApp and EMC integration. Support for NetApp cluster mode and EMC VNX2 snapshots continue seamless integration advancements to ensure SteelFusion integrates seamlessly with data centre SAN infrastructure to provide backup consolidation.

Riverbed SteelFusion is a branch converged infrastructure solution that centralizes data in the data centre and delivers local performance and nearly instant recovery at the branch. SteelFusion consolidates branch servers, storage, networking and virtualisation infrastructure into a single solution. SteelFusion expedites branch office provisioning, backup and recovery and ensures continuous operations when disasters occur from any cause - weather, fire or accident. With SteelFusion, businesses can restore branch operations in a matter of minutes vs days, centrally protect and secure data in the data centre and significantly lower the TCO of branch and remote offices.

Riverbed SteelFusion is part of the Riverbed Application Performance Platform, the most complete platform for location-independent computing that gives companies the flexibility to host applications and data in the locations that best serve the business while ensuring flawless application delivery to better leverage global resources, radically reduce the cost of running their business and maximise employee productivity.

Availability

SteelFusion 3.0 is expected to be generally available in early May.

Additional resources

* Taneja Report:Converging branch IT infrastructure the right way: http://rvbd.ly/1p6DOmY
* SteelFusion Video: Introducing SteelFusion: http://rvbd.ly/1gXDtJ4
* Live Streamed Event: April 15, 10am PT/1pm ET: http://rvbd.ly/1hOWv4F
* Customer Case Study: Mazzetti, SteelFusion transforms branch IT: http://rvbd.ly/1hOYRAx

Forward-looking statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the future availability of products and their ability to meet the needs of customers. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialise or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include our ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; our ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; the adoption rate of our products; our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our distribution partners; our ability to compete in our industry; fluctuations in demand, sales cycles and prices for our products and services; shortages or price fluctuations in our supply chain; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; general political, economic and market conditions and events; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. More information about these and other risks that may impact Riverbed's business are set forth in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the period ended 31 December 2013, and ts subsequent quarterly reports filed with the SEC. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Any future product, feature or related specification that may be referenced in this release are for information purposes only and are not commitments to deliver any technology or enhancement. Riverbed reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time.

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Riverbed

Riverbed, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue, is the leader in application performance infrastructure, delivering the most complete platform for location-independent computing. Location-independent computing turns location and distance into a competitive advantage by allowing IT to have the flexibility to host applications and data in the most optimal locations while ensuring applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues are detected and fixed before end users notice. Riverbed's 25 000+ customers include 97% of the Fortune 100 and 95% of the Forbes Global 100. Learn more at www.riverbed.com.

Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.

Editorial contacts

Annal'e van Rensburg
Red Ribbon Communications
(012) 809 4102
annale@redribboncommunications.co.za
Christo Briedenhann
Riverbed Technology
(012) 348 3245
Christo.Briedenhann@riverbed.com