Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ:RVBD), the leader in application performance
infrastructure, today announced Riverbed®
SteelFusion™ 4.0, the first and only hyper-converged infrastructure
solution for the branch of the future. SteelFusion 4.0 enables zero IT
at the branch by virtualizing and consolidating 100% of data and servers
from remote sites into data centers, centralizing data security and IT
management without losing the benefits of running branch services
locally. SteelFusion meets the IT challenges of today’s sprawling branch
environments by enabling organizations to remove all servers, storage,
and backup from remote sites; enabling instant provisioning and
recovery; providing complete security and visibility; and ensuring that
applications simply work.
In SteelFusion 4.0, the hardware platforms have been completely updated
and redesigned to deliver increased performance and scalability for
remote sites and regional hubs of all sizes. SteelFusion 4.0 also
introduces new FusionSync™ for seamless branch continuity. FusionSync
ensures that all branch data is accessible across private and hybrid
cloud environments, providing the ability to withstand and recover from
data center failures with zero downtime. Now, with SteelFusion 4.0,
enterprises can deploy a single hyper-converged solution to centralize
all branch office data and applications in the data center as well as
leverage the cloud for continuity, resulting in dramatic increases in
data security, business continuity and agility, operational efficiency
and application performance.
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An average of over 50% of enterprise employees are based at branch
offices (remote sites, job sites, stores, manufacturing plants, etc.),
meaning that if branch applications don’t perform, branch workers can’t
work and business is lost with direct impacts to the top and bottom
line. Branch offices, remote locations and store fronts are critical for
local customer engagement, but they require IT staff to support many
islands of infrastructure that are costly and inefficient to maintain
and yet necessary to meet local performance and reliability needs.
Today, 50% of company data and intellectual property still lives outside
the data center, leaving it unprotected, open to compromise and data
breaches. Backup processes are cumbersome and data recovery is
time-consuming or even futile without qualified IT staff at most
branches, not to mention the challenges of provisioning new services or
applications in an agile world. These activities, and others that
support branch IT operations, consume 50% of IT budgets.
SteelFusion changes the game so that enterprises can rethink branch IT.
For example, one can imagine the branch analogously as a smart phone – a
thin, small device that has access to all the applications and data of
the Internet and cloud. And yet, when one buys a smart phone, the
provider doesn’t also provide a backpack full of application servers,
storage, and backup infrastructure to carry with it. In the age of the
cloud, branch IT should be the same way, and now it can be with Riverbed
SteelFusion 4.0.
Blog Post: Seven
ways SteelFusion 4.0 and branch IT are similar to your smartphone
“Branches are the front lines of business with increasing IT needs.
However, the answer to delivering customer-centric business is not to
introduce more IT complexity and infrastructure, but to rethink branch
IT,” said Paul O’Farrell, Senior Vice President and General Manager,
SteelFusion and SteelHead Product Groups at Riverbed. “With SteelFusion
4.0, Riverbed delivers the branch of the future with a zero branch IT
solution that eliminates the challenges of supporting remote sites. This
means getting all of the infrastructure — servers, storage and backup —
out of the branch and centralized into the data center. By doing so,
companies gain the agility to instantly provision new services and apps
and to recover data in minutes versus days. This also means data
security and control with full visibility, ensuring business continuity,
and that apps perform as if local. SteelFusion 4.0 delivers on all these
promises and more.”
Many Riverbed customers are already benefiting from a zero branch IT
approach, including Weatherford, one of the largest global oil and gas
service providers. “Our operations cover oil rigs and offshore
locations where any disruption or unavailability of applications on site
would result in loss of production time,” explained Han Koon Er, Asia
Pacific IT Manager, Weatherford Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. “With Riverbed
SteelFusion, we are able to optimize data center processes and
thereby eliminate file servers, storage and other backup processes which
require our IT teams to be dispatched to remote locations. This has
enabled focused production on site with peace of mind that data is
secured at our data center."
The next generation of SteelFusion incorporates the following
enhancements:
-
A new SteelFusion Edge platform to support larger branch offices. The
new SteelFusion Edge platform delivers 4x the memory for virtual
machines topping at 256GB to run a greater number of local workloads
at larger branch offices and regional hubs. The three models in the
new SteelFusion Edge platform also feature Advanced Tiering Cache that
complements the existing write cache with solid-state disk read
functionality. The new Edge platform replaces all existing SteelFusion
Edge models.
-
A new SteelFusion Core platform to scale large, global deployments. A
new SteelFusion Core platform complements the updated SteelFusion Edge
platforms, designed to support a larger number of branch office
locations, more capacity and faster performance to enable IT
organizations to scale to support larger enterprise deployments.
-
Introducing FusionSync capabilities for even better business
continuity. This innovative capability synchronizes branch office
data across private and hybrid cloud environments, ensuring all branch
data is accessible in case of a data center failure. Organizations can
now recover from both branch and data center outages within minutes
with little to no data loss.
“With the volume of data created and stored outside the central data
center continuing to grow significantly, CIOs are actively looking for
ways to mitigate risk and simplify the challenge of data security and
centralization, while achieving optimal productivity in branch
locations,” said Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy
Group. “Branch IT operations represent a significant opportunity to
address these issues, and CIOs must carefully consider how the current
state of branch IT affects the business and bottom line, and which new
technologies can help move branches into a more secure and
cost-effective operating model."
Availability
SteelFusion 4.0 is expected to be generally available in May 2015. For
more information visit the SteelFusion
website or attend the Zero
Branch IT web event happening on April 28, 2015.
Riverbed SteelFusion and the Riverbed Application Performance
Management Platform™
The Riverbed Application Performance Platform™ gives CIOs end-to-end
visibility, optimization and control across an entire enterprise. A key
part of the platform, Riverbed SteelFusion is the first and only
hyper-converged infrastructure solution that enables zero IT at the
branch. SteelFusion consolidates 100% of data and servers out of
branches and into the data center where it can be properly secured,
managed and protected, while ensuring fast local performance of branch
applications and services. SteelFusion extends the full power, security
and resiliency of the data center out to each branch site resulting in
complete data security, increased business agility and superior business
continuity.
Connect with Riverbed
About Riverbed
Riverbed, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue, is the leader in
Application Performance Infrastructure, delivering the most complete
platform for the hybrid enterprise to ensure applications perform as
expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues
can be proactively detected and resolved before impacting business
performance. Riverbed enables hybrid enterprises to transform
application performance into a competitive advantage by maximizing
employee productivity and leveraging IT to create new forms of
operational agility. Riverbed’s 26,000+ customers include 97% of the
Fortune 100 and 98% 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, Inc. All other trademarks used
herein belong to their respective owners.
Copyright Business Wire 2015