Riverbed has new optimizations for Microsoft applications like Exchange 2010 and Microsoft Online Services and storage optimizations for SRDF/A and FCIP. There is HA support for RSP. With this release Riverbed delivers superior acceleration across a wide variety of infrastructure thereby delivering maximum performance for any cloud, architecture or application.

Virtual Steelhead

Deploy the Steelhead Appliance without hardware limitations. With the virtual steelhead, customers can now deploy the Steelhead appliances for ruggedized and other environments with specialized physical requirements. Customers with fully virtualized data centers can now extend the benefits of virtualization to WAN optimization appliances as well and manage these appliances with existing management tools. The Virtual Steelhead is also equipped with the ability to scale on demand, with a simple license upgrade, so customers can meet the demands of their growing business with minimal disruption.

Microsoft Optimizations

Accelerating Microsoft Applications from wherever they are located. With this release, customers running Exchange 2010 can see data reductions of up to 97% and more than 34 times faster transmission that keep end users immune from effects of latency. There are added optimizations that reduce the latency and response time of Share Point and speed it up by up to 30%. This release also provides support for optimizing Microsoft Online services aka Microsoft BPOS-D like Exchange Online and Share Point Online. The optimizations work in both encrypted and unencrypted environments for Exchange 2010 and Exchange Online.

Lotus Notes Optimizations

Enhanced support for optimizing Lotus Notes v8.5. For those customers with Lotus Domino and Notes environments RiOS 6.1 delivers latency optimizations and improved application response times thereby improving the end user experience.

Storage Optimizations

Accelerating replication and DR traffic – delivering a 30:1 compression for storage traffic. Customers that use EMC's Symmetrix V-MAX and DMX will benefit from a higher data reduction and better throughput due to the SRDF/A optimizations in this release. This release also supports "Auto-disable compression" for SRDF/A allowing for even better optimization for EMC environments.

This release also provides FCIP Optimizations and is certified and qualified with Brocade 7500 and Cisco MDS gateways.

Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) High Availability

Improved support for RSP in HA environments. RSP has been deployed successfully as a branch office box solution across a wide array of customers. This enhanced feature allows customers the flexibility to consolidate branch office services without impacting availability.

Improved Network Resiliency

Added support in WCCP environments. With this release we are providing added support for multiple interfaces on the Steelhead to participate in WCCP groups on one or more routers. This enables two use cases - load balancing traffic across multiple interfaces and failover to a secondary interface when the primary interface fails.

Central Management Console

RSP Management via CMCs. The CMC now can streamline the deployment and configuration of RSP and RSP packages. The new UI shows per-appliance health and status of RSP service and individual packages. Also there is now support for up to 2,000 Steelhead appliances per CMC.