Riverbed Technology, the performance company, announced an extension of its strategic partnership with VMware with the introduction of a performance management solution for software-defined networks (SDNs) and the ability to provision wide area network (WAN) optimisation for virtual data centres (VDC). The planned Riverbed solutions will ensure the operational viability and performance of VMware-based SDNs and VDCs. Riverbed Cascade product family support for VXLAN will provide IT organisations with an application-aware network performance management (NPM) solution for SDN performance management. In addition, Riverbed Steelhead Cloud Edition will be further integrated with VMware vCloud Director to simplify deployment, configuration and management of WAN optimisation as a service for the VDC. Riverbed also announced that it intends to release additional Cascade products in virtual editions with the introduction of Cascade Profiler Virtual Edition and Cascade Gateway Virtual Edition.
Performance management for software-defined network and the virtualised data centre
SDNs are one of the cornerstones of the VDC. At the heart of this trend in network virtualisation is VXLAN overlay technology that enables the quick and dynamic configuration of virtual networks in minutes. By creating virtual networks on demand, which can span physical boundaries, enterprises can optimise computing and storage capacity for mission-critical applications. With virtual overlay networks, traffic is encapsulated in tunnels across the physical network, which creates blind spots for the understanding and troubleshooting of performance issues.
Riverbed and VMware are collaborating in the development of a new VXLAN-aware Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX) format. This functionality would enable network and application performance monitoring, troubleshooting and reporting, allowing organisations to embrace SDNs without sacrificing operational control.
The Riverbed Cascade product family is an application-aware NPM solution to leverage this performance information about overlay network and UDP-encapsulated traffic to provide comprehensive and unified visibility across the WAN, LAN, virtual overlay networks and data centres in the cloud. Access to this information enables network and virtualisation teams to find and fix network and application performance problems, regardless of the architecture - traditional, server virtualised, or fully virtualised with SDNs. With the planned enhancements, Riverbed Cascade products will provide network operations teams with the ability to:
* Control and understand VXLAN virtual overlay network performance
* Monitor and troubleshoot VDCs and the physical network in a single, elegantly-designed solution
* Provide VDC owners isolated views into their virtual data centre performance and SLAs
* Deploy a completely virtual performance management solution for SDNs and VDCs with Cascade Profiler Virtual Edition, Cascade Gateway Virtual Edition, and Virtual Cascade Shark software
Standardise, simplify and automate cloud services
In May 2012, Riverbed and VMware joined forces to improve performance and flexibility for moving workloads between clouds. The combination of Riverbed WAN optimisation and VMware vCloud Connector solutions enable enterprises and service providers to maximise their cloud computing offerings by empowering customers to utilise their existing IT investments.
As part of this effort, Riverbed and VMware are continuing to further advance this solution to better enable all the benefits of cloud optimisation while delivering enterprises and service providers the flexibility, control and agility they require. The VMware vCloud integration will standardise WAN optimisation deployments in virtual environments and automates these deployment processes as part of mission-critical solutions. Using VMware vCloud Director and vCloud Networking & Security (vCNS), customers will be able to easily enable Riverbed Steelhead Cloud Edition capabilities into their cloud infrastructure. The integration would fully automate the deployment and management of the Steelhead Cloud Edition, while vCNS Edge integration ensures traffic redirection to the Steelhead Cloud Edition for fully automated optimisation. This standardisation and automation will allow enterprises and service providers that use vCloud Director to simply develop and deploy optimised solutions, increase their return on investment, decrease time to market, and provide high-performance cloud offerings to the marketplace.
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Riverbed
Riverbed delivers performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualisation, consolidation, cloud computing and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance. By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimise and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organisation. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available at www.riverbed.com.
Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.
VMware, VMware vCloud Director and VMware vCloud Connector are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. The use of the words 'partner' or 'partnership' does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.
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