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Application Acceleration Isn't Just WAN optimization
Many enterprises believe that the key to application acceleration is WAN optimization. But optimizing the network - via compression, QoS, or TCP optimization - is only one part of the solution needed to truly improve application performance across the network.
Unlike other approaches to application acceleration, Riverbed's wide-area data services (WDS) solutions can provide dramatic application performance increases - typically by five to 50 times and in some cases up to 100 times faster - across the broad range of applications that enterprises care about the most.
With RiOS even SSL-encrypted (e.g. HTTPS) traffic can take advantage of Riverbed's award-winning acceleration techniques. These dramatic performance increases enable customers to dramatically change the way they do business: Inter-office collaboration becomes easier; broad-based IT consolidation becomes a reality; network-based backups become feasible; data can be more easily secured through centralization.
The Challenge of Enterprise Application Acceleration
Enterprises today depend on a wide variety of applications to make their organizations function effectively. After all, how many organizations run solely on file sharing or email? Any effective solution for application acceleration must provide significant acceleration for all key applications that cross the WAN.
Most WAN optimization approaches look at the performance problem from just one angle - the network. But the network is only one of the factors slowing application performance. Because of the limited approach taken by many WAN optimization vendors, enterprises that deploy these products typically see just 10 to 20 percent improvement in application performance, and similarly small gains in bandwidth utilization. In the case of QoS-only products, enterprises see no acceleration overall, they merely make trade-offs between reserving bandwidth for one application at the expense of another.
To make the application performance leap that enterprises need, a radically different approach must be taken: Simultaneously address bandwidth constraints, TCP's behavior in high latency networks, and inefficiencies in the applications themselves.
RiOS. An integrated approach to accelerating applications over the WAN
Riverbed has created a comprehensive solution to the application acceleration challenge. Instead of just looking at the network, the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) takes an integrated approach that simultaneously addresses the network, storage, and application elements of performance.
RiOS provides an application-independent foundation that automatically optimizes all applications that run over TCP. RiOS also provides application-specific optimizations for widely-used applications such as file sharing, email, databases, Web (including secure HTTPS) applications, and more. By combining an application independent foundation with application specific modules, RiOS provides a more powerful, flexible architecture that can deliver higher application acceleration and also deliver additional optimizations to customers for optimal application performance.
While RiOS includes WAN optimization functionality, it goes well beyond typical network compression or standard TCP modifications. Riverbed's Data Streamlining technologies typically eliminate 60 to 95% of the data that currently clogs enterprise WAN connections; Transport Streamlining typically eliminate 65 to 98% of the packet roundtrips at the TCP layer; and Application Streamlining typically eliminates the same high number of packet roundtrips at the application layer. This combination of massive data reduction and packet roundtrip minimization results in faster application performance - typically by five to 50 times and in some cases up to 100 times - well beyond the capabilities of standard WAN optimization.
SSL ACCELERATION
Riverbed Accelerates SSL Encrypted Traffic
Riverbed extends its award winning application acceleration capability to SSL traffic by providing end-to-end secure traffic acceleration. Prior to this breakthrough, traffic from encrypted web applications wasn't "visible" to Steelhead appliances and was passed through untouched; no attempt was made to optimize or accelerate that encrypted traffic.
In order to apply application acceleration and WAN optimization techniques to SSL traffic, the data and protocols must be visible, which means they must be decrypted on both sides of a WAN, yet remain encrypted while traversing all three segments of a given connection: from the server to the server-side WDS appliance, between the two WDS appliances across the WAN, and from client-side WDS appliance to client. Furthermore, the management of SSL certificates and private keys must be done in the datacenter, as to not introduce a new security vulnerability.
Maintains the Centralized Trust Model IT Architects Demand
Riverbed has introduced an innovative patent-pending approach to accelerating SSL traffic across the WAN without breaking the centralized trust model favored by security architects. Riverbed's solution is complementary to many existing SSL Offload solutions (see below on the differences). Despite SSL offload vendors (also known as Application Front End or AFE) describing their products as "SSL Acceleration" solutions, they are architecturally different from Riverbed's, and remain complementary.
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