core sector communique

 

 

Organizations Increase Remote Worker Productivity with Enhanced Riverbed Mobile WAN Optimization Solution

Steelhead Mobile 3.1 Introduces Performance Optimization for Citrix Virtual Desktops and Key Microsoft Enterprise Applications; Introduces First WAN Optimization Solution for Apple Macs

Bangalore, India – AUGUST 31, 2010 – Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ: RVBD), the IT performance company, today announced the newest version of its mobile WAN optimization solution, Steelhead® Mobile 3.1. Steelhead Mobile 3.1 builds on the Riverbed® award-winning acceleration solution for workers on the go with a suite of enhancements that gives enterprises flexibility in deploying up-to-date technologies without sacrificing user productivity. With this release, enterprises and governments will be able to take advantage of performance optimizations for Citrix virtual desktops and key Microsoft enterprise applications and protocols for mobile workers.  In addition, Riverbed is introducing the first mobile WAN optimization solution for organizations deploying Apple Mac laptop computers across their mobile workforces.

 

As organizations adapt their infrastructure for the modern workforce, greater flexibility is required. Centralization of data continues to be a top priority to reduce IT infrastructure costs, but challenges such as remote locations, inconsistent links, and high-latency environments slow application performance and significantly impact the productivity of high-cost knowledge workers when they are working remotely.  In addition to centralization, organizations are incorporating new technologies across their global workforces, such as virtual desktops, and supporting new enterprise platforms, such as Apple Macs, which leave organizations struggling to provide a consistent user experience for mobile workers. Steelhead Mobile 3.1 provides organizations with enhanced performance optimizations to overcome the challenges presented by a modern infrastructure, resulting in a more productive mobile workforce.

 

“We’ve seen organizations getting great rewards from technologies such as virtual desktop deployments, but despite these new ways to work, enterprises and remote workers are realizing that access alone isn’t enough," said Jon Oltsik, principal analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group.  “As users are increasingly separated from their data, performance issues in delivering data over the WAN can lead to a significant reduction in worker productivity.  Riverbed Steelhead Mobile can help large organizations address many of the network performance barriers and thus accelerate key applications and data to mobile workers over the WAN.”

 

Optimizing Performance for Citrix Virtual Desktop Deployments

Enterprises have discovered that virtual desktop performance across the WAN suffers due to bandwidth restrictions and the impact of latency, which in turn impacts end user productivity.  Steelhead Mobile 3.1 provides functionality to improve Citrix performance for mobile workers.  In addition, the enhanced functionality makes it easier for organizations to get the most from their Citrix deployments by simplifying configuration.  This combination of speed and simplicity allows organizations to enjoy all of the benefits of providing virtual desktops across the WAN without concern for performance.   With these enhancements to Steelhead Mobile, Riverbed provides a complete WAN optimization solution to accelerate Citrix traffic from data centers to branch offices to remote and small office users, making their virtual desktop performance faster than ever before.

 

In addition, with this release enterprises can deliver to their mobile workers the same acceleration capabilities for Citrix XenApp as employees at headquarters and branch offices that utilize Riverbed WAN optimization already enjoy.  This acceleration results in a faster, richer user experience as well as bandwidth savings of up to 50 to 80 percent over uncompressed desktop traffic. 

 

Introducing the Only WAN Optimization Solution for Apple Mac Users

With Steelhead Mobile 3.1, Riverbed introduces the industry’s only mobile WAN optimization solution for Apple Mac desktops and laptops. Built on the same powerful Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS®) that powers the Steelhead appliances and Virtual Steelhead^TM, the Steelhead Mobile Mac client software allows mobile workers using Apple Macs to enjoy improved access and increased performance.  With many mobile Mac users choosing to run Mac and PC applications simultaneously, Steelhead Mobile 3.1 provides the flexibility to accelerate whichever applications they need, independent of the underlying operating system.  Additionally, the Steelhead Mobile Mac client is the only mobile WAN optimization solution to optimize Windows applications running in VMware Fusion, enabling organizations to optimize applications in both a Windows and Mac operating system with a single client license.

 

“Steelhead Mobile is an integral part of our IT strategy to provide our mobile workers with access to the data they need to do their jobs,” said Eric Mayer, director of Information Technology at the Loomis Group.  “Additionally, as a creative services organization, we rely heavily on Apple Mac products to deliver value to our customers. Steelhead Mobile’s support of the Mac platform will provide us with another powerful tool to help our creative team work effectively wherever they are, whether they are working from home or a remote client site.”

 

Accelerated Microsoft Applications for Remote Users

Riverbed delivers acceleration for the broadest range of applications and platforms of any WAN optimization vendor. Continuing that effort, in Steelhead Mobile 3.1 Riverbed provides enhanced optimizations for key Microsoft applications including:

 

• Exchange 2010 Application Optimization: Steelhead Mobile 3.1 is the first mobile WAN optimization solution to officially support both network and application layer optimizations for Exchange 2010.  Remote workers can see data reductions of up to 97% and up to 30 times faster performance, giving administrators the freedom to upgrade their Exchange environments without concern for performance.  

 

• Secure Acceleration for Encrypted MAPI: With the release of Exchange 2007 and 2010, Microsoft enabled encryption by default, forcing administrators to choose between security and performance. Steelhead Mobile 3.1 optimizes encrypted MAPI for mobile workers, improving response times by up to 45 times.  Riverbed makes it easier to deliver consistent performance to branch office and mobile workers in environments where email encryption is used, providing organizations with a comprehensive solution for optimizing communication between client and host servers without impacting security.

 

• SharePoint and Microsoft Online: Steelhead Mobile 3.1 builds on the existing web application optimizations for SharePoint that improve document check-in and check-out times by up to 30 times.  These additional optimizations for SharePoint reduce latency effects and speed response times by up to 30 percent, providing users with LAN-like speeds across the WAN for navigation within the SharePoint Portal.  Steelhead Mobile 3.1 also optimizes Microsoft Online (BPOS-D) services such as encrypted and unencrypted Exchange Online and SharePoint Online environments.

 

“Organizations have struggled to deliver IT resources to an increasingly mobile workforce. The introduction of new technologies and platforms to the global IT infrastructure further complicates the ability of an IT organization to provide a consistent experience to end users no matter their location,” said Apurva Davé, vice president of product marketing at Riverbed.  “Steelhead Mobile 3.1 helps organizations of any size overcome the performance challenges involved in delivering business-critical applications and data to their remote workers.”