Riverbed Brings Apple Mac, Citrix XenApp into WAN Optimization Fold

Riverbed Technology is growing the reach of its WAN optimization capabilities, bringing support for Apple Mac users and XenApp from Citrix Systems into its RiOS product.

RiOS is the software that runs Riverbed’s Steelhead WAN optimization appliances, and the company rolled out version 6.0 of the software Oct. 19.

WAN optimization is used to accelerate various network traffic, such as file sharing, which in turn improves network performance and as well as consolidation, virtualization and collaboration capabilities, according to Nik Rouda, senior product marketing manager at Riverbed.

The new version—the first for Riverbed in about a year—includes greater client support, including for Macs.

“Macs are becoming more commonplace in enterprises,” Rouda said in an interview. “It’s nice to get Mac users into the fold.”

With RiOS and the company’s Steelhead appliance, Mac users can see a 60-times improvement in uploading files.

In addition, RiOS now improves performance and bandwidth capabilities for businesses using Citrix’s XenApp product, which enables the streaming of applications in a desktop virtualization environment. With RiOS, users needs 50 percent less bandwidth to get the same performance, which means that “customers can get twice as many Citrix desktop instances on the network than they could” before, Rouda said.

RiOS 6.0 also offers new HTTP functionality, which helps make such applications as SAP’s Netweaver, SharePoint, Microsoft CRM, Agile and Pivotal CRM as much as 20 times faster.

Oracle’s E-Business Suite 12 also is faster, by as much as 50 times, Rouda said.

RiOS 6.0 also helps in other areas, including disaster recovery and business continuity, through partnerships with such storage vendors as EMC, NetApp and Hitachi Data Systems. The software recognizes disaster recovery traffic and enables more optimizations to improve throughput and acceleration.

In addition, RiOS 6.0 lets a Steelhead appliance automatically adjust compression and deduplication techniques for better throughput and bandwidth use.