Riverbed SteelHead's 9.1 Release Offers Cloud SaaS Optimization
Riverbed’s SteelHead WAN optimization lineup helps organizations accelerate delivery of applications across hybrid environments. By focusing on WAN optimization, SteelHead has grown to become a top product within the WAN optimization market.
With the new 9.1 release of SteelHead, Riverbed says that organization can enjoy faster delivery of cloud applications. Specific applications that will enjoy advanced optimization are ServiceNow, SAP SuccessFactors, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365.
In an interview with ENP, Josh Dobies, Senior Director of Marketing expounds further on the specific optimizations saying, “We’ve performance tested these apps and optimize for their individual requirements.”
SteelHead itself can be purchased on the SaaS model. Organizations will have to pay for a license of the SteelHead optimization product on a per user basis. Riverbed is referring to this as a universal SaaS model.
Dobies goes on to say, “The new universal SaaS licensing provides better pricing and flexibility that allows customers to be more agile and ensure the performance of applications on the-fly, The new monthly, user-based-subscription allows optimization for any and all supported apps with no additional cost.”
Another neat feature within the SteelHead platform is its HTTP caching mechanism. SteelHead has a fully embedded proxy basically caches all of the web traffic to help increase WAN optimization. This proxy is a transparent proxy that caches traffic as it goes over the WAN as opposed to a traditional proxy that is configured to be used within web browsers. SteelHead does not mention what this transparent proxy platform is based upon so it unknown if there is an open source app orchestrating the proxy caching or if there is a proprietary technology at work.
More information about the new 9.1 release of SteelHead can be found on the Riverbed website. On the site, you’ll see a comprehensive breakdown of the SteelHead WAN optimization lineup.
