Riverbed Technology is the pioneer and, with over 4,000 customers, the worldwide technology and market share leader in wide-area data services (WDS). Riverbed provides the first and only comprehensive WDS solution to a host of severe problems that have effectively prevented enterprises from sharing applications and data across wide areas. By wide area, we mean anywhere in the world. Between Chicago and New York. Or between Seattle and Shanghai. Riverbed's award-winning Steelhead WDS appliances address all of the issues that affect application performance over the WAN, dramatically improving the performance of applications that companies and knowledge workers rely on every day - including file sharing, email, backup, document management systems, IT tools, as well as ERP and CRM solutions. With Riverbed, any of these applications can be accelerated somewhere between 5 and 50, and even up to 100 times faster. In very simple terms, the impact for companies is the difference between having dial-up and having broadband. Suddenly, the impossible becomes possible, just like that. Riverbed's Steelhead WDS solutions are available anywhere in the world through certified resellers, who are members of the Riverbed Partner Network, from Riverbed OEM partners or directly from Riverbed. Riverbed Technology's world headquarters is located in San Francisco, California.

Steelhead appliances and Steelhead Mobile software enable wide-area data services (WDS) for enterprises of all sizes. These products make it easy for organizations to accelerate the applications that are most important to their users, anywhere in the world. Steelhead appliances are available in a range of sizes to meet the needs of any remote office - from small sales offices with just a few people, to major design centers and corporate facilities with thousands of employees. Steelhead Mobile software enables workers on the move to enjoy LAN-like access to files and applications whether they are working from home, on the road, or even at customer sites.

Every Steelhead product comes with the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS):

• Data Streamlining optimizes all WAN traffic by removing all redundant data and prioritizing traffic through advanced QoS mechanisms
• Transport Streamlining improves the behavior of TCP
• Application Streamlining reduces application protocol inefficiencies and enables disconnected operations
• Management Streamlining simplifies the deployment, maintenance, and management of the appliances.

By deploying Steelhead appliances and software, enterprises can accelerate application performance from 5 to 50 times – and in some cases up to 100 times – as well as reduced bandwidth. Steelhead appliances and software can deliver more responsive applications, successful consolidation of distributed IT infrastructure, and enable expedited network-based backup and replication.

The complete Steelhead product family optimizes traffic in both directions, transparent to your applications, and requires no reconfiguration to client and server software. All Steelhead products are designed for easy integration into your existing network, with no changes to routers or servers, and complete compatibility with existing QoS and VoIP implementations.

Steelhead Product Family Key Benefits

Accelerate the Applications that are the Most Important to You

Riverbed has architected its products to provide the best possible acceleration for the broadest range of enterprise applications. This means that employees across your organization can see dramatic, immediate benefits from the Steelhead product family. The Steelhead family is built on an application-independent architecture that optimizes all TCP traffic for bandwidth utilization and TCP behavior. On top of this architecture, Riverbed has built a series of Application Streamlining modules that further optimize applications like Windows, Exchange, HTTP, HTTPS, NFS, and MS SQL.

In fact, most analysts note that Riverbed has the most complete strategy for wide-area data services and application acceleration. In the recent Forrester WAVE report, Forrester notes that Riverbed "is the clear leader" in this market. Gartner's most recent Magic Quadrant on this space also puts Riverbed in the leader's quadrant, with the most complete vision and the highest ability to execute.

With Riverbed, you can assure that your organization has the most effective, widely used, and most technically advanced solution for accelerating applications over the WAN.

Transparent Deployment in 15 Minutes or Less

Steelhead appliances do not require any client or server reconfiguration in standard deployment mode. Steelhead Mobile software simply requires a small software package to be installed on end users' laptops or desktops. Their applications will continue to work just as they did before the Steelhead appliances were deployed, only faster. There is no proxy configuration required, nor do any routing tables need to be adjusted.

All Steelhead products are designed to be deployed quickly and easily, often in just ten to fifteen minutes. The appliances can be pre-configured at the factory to your requirements. Then you can literally open the box and plug your new Steelhead appliance into the network. Once deployed, Steelhead appliances can use auto-discovery to automatically find all the other Steelhead appliances on the network. This avoids tedious tunnel configurations often required by other products.

Steelhead Mobile software can simply be pushed out from your data center to individual machines, simplifying setup and avoiding complicated end-user setup requirements.

Flexible Deployment, Reporting, and Management

Web GUI and CLI Management and Reporting

Each Steelhead appliance and Steelhead Mobile client can be managed through a rich GUI or command-line interface. This enables remote configuration and management across the enterprise. All Steelhead appliances can report traffic and network optimization, and segment reports by port, protocol, or IP address range. Steelhead Mobile reporting gives statistics down to an individual user in terms of health, performance, and issues.

Enterprises can also deploy the optional Central Management Console (CMC), which allows you to configure and manage multiple Steelhead appliances simultaneously. The CMC provides device grouping capability, dynamic reporting, scheduled operations, over-the-wire software upgrades, and automatic “touchless” setup of new Steelhead appliances in your network.

Highly Configurable, Flexible Deployment

The default state for Steelhead appliances is to intercept and optimize all WAN traffic. However, administrators have the option to restrict or specify optimization by protocol, port, or IP address range.

Steelhead appliances can be deployed in virtually all network topologies. They can be deployed in-path, out-of-path, in various high-availability configurations, near specific servers, or virtually anywhere that meets your needs.

Steelhead Mobile software can scale to all of your mobile workers easily, and also offers simple yet flexible configuration policies to help manage performance, including optimization policies and data store size.

Designed for Reliability and Availability

Steelhead appliances can be deployed in a variety of high-availability configurations in order to provide continued optimized performance in the event of an appliance failure. These configurations are available for both in-path and out-of-path deployments. Steelhead appliances also enable automated datastore copying, ensuring that failover devices have the most recent user data available.

In addition, Steelhead appliance models 3020 and up also feature RAID and triple power supplies to improve reliability.

Steelhead Mobile Controllers can also be deployed in redundant designs so that mobile workers will always have fast access to their key applications.