Riverbed Technology is closing the books on 2011 by releasing a major update to the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS), the software that powers its Steelhead WAN optimization appliances. With this update, Riverbed has enhanced RiOS’s video capabilities and included support for a slew of technologies including IPv6 and the UDP protocol.

“This update is a major step forward,” said Miles Kelly, senior director of product marketing for Steelhead at Riverbed. “We’re focused not on enhancing or building optimization for any one part of an environment, but we are moving forward on a lot of fronts.”

RiOS 7 includes support for live-stream splitting, which enables a company to send out a single video stream via HTTP, which is sent to the Steelhead appliance and the re-populated on the network rather than the full video stream being sent to each branch office individually. Such technology eliminates the burden of data-heavy video streams clogging the network, Kelly said.

Riverbed also now includes support for native stream splitting of Adobe Flash over HTTP, as well as for Microsoft Silverlight — two of the most popular video tools on the market.

“For Riverbed it’s all about video delivery, but for the customer it’s first about creating the content and then publishing. The partnerships we’ve developed are in an effort to be the video solution customers are looking for,” Kelly said. “We’ve already done the hard work with figuring out how to work with other vendors, so we have a full package for our channel partners to deliver.”

Other enhancements to RiOS 7 include:

  • Optimization and acceleration for UDP and support for IPv6
  • Acceleration and control of virtual desktop environments, including Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop, VMware View and Microsoft RDP and RemoteFX
  • On-demand packet capture and analysis for branch office troubleshooting

Riverbed’s focus on the VDI space, in particular, will help address many of the issues preventing customers from adopting virtualization, Kelly said.

“VDI is a primary area of focus … VDI and adoption of virtual desktops have moved from the experimental phase and is on the first of adoption,” he said. “We are definitely aware of VDI because there is a real performance problem.

As such, Riverbed’s work in the VDI space as well as its other network optimization enhancements address what it believes to be the major pain points plaguing many corporate networks. And that, of course, can only benefit Riverbed’s partners.

“As a performance platform company we need to focus on the problems taxing networks today and in the future,” Kelly said. “When we talk through feature sets with our customers, they focus on the needs of networks and apps today as well as helping future-proof their networks. For partners, we see a lot who say the day of box-pushing is over. They know the best way to differentiate is to be the trusted adviser.”

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