Riverbed RiOS 7.0 Release: Embedding Shark Functionality into Steelhead is a Great Move

Riverbed has this month announced the release of its new operating system, RiOS 7.0, which includes the following innovative capabilities:

• The industry’s first native stream splitting for http video delivery
• Packet mode UDP optimisation for replication solutions
• IPv6 support
• Automatic tuning for key HTTP applications
• On-demand packet capture, analysis and integration with Cascade Pilot
• Enhancements for Citrix desktop virtualisation
• Native Skipware integration for Satellite communications
• Optimisation for encrypted Lotus Notes
• Support for end-to-end Kerberos authentication
• Optimisation for Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS)

Of these new additions, the on-demand packet capture and analysis feature particularly caught Teneo’s eye. Embedding Cascade Shark functionality into its Steelhead xx50 appliances is a great move from Riverbed, in our opinion.

Teneo has worked with customers of Riverbed’s Cascade range of products – Profiler, Shark and Pilot – since the early days of Riverbed’s acquisitions of Mazu and CACE Technologies. Recognising the value that these standalone products have brought to our customers’ infrastructures, it’s exciting to be able to now give our Steelhead customers access to this troubleshooting feature within the same appliance as part of the new RiOS release.

You might know that Steelheads and Steelhead mobile clients already serve as packet capture devices with an inbuilt TCP dump feature. This now expands the capacity and indexing functionality of the Steelhead and gives customers the ability to carry out retrospective deep packet inspection and, importantly, analyse trace files directly on remote Steelheads using Cascade Pilot. Steelhead customers should care about this for the following reasons:

Cost effectiveness:
Many of our Steelhead customers have deployed their appliances at remote offices where they have limited IT staff, in numbers and with the appropriate skill set or tools to be able to troubleshoot the WAN to any great depth. When something goes wrong, the typical reaction is to send a member of staff over to the site, which can be extremely time-consuming and expensive.

With this new development, Steelhead customers can now troubleshoot a WAN problem at a remote location without needing local IT staff onsite by logging into Cascade Pilot’s web interface and analysing the data held within Shark. With Cascade Shark functionality now embedded, customers also no longer need to install separate hardware-based packet capture devices on the network, meaning savings are made on the capital cost, power and cooling aspects of this traditional set-up.

Speed:
Problem diagnosis and resolution is greatly accelerated through remote access. Not only that but Cascade Pilot can run analysis on massive (GB/TB) files in seconds, dramatically cutting down the time spent on a troubleshooting task so you can get on with the next thing on your list.

Increased Network Health:
Cascade Pilot analyses trace files directly on the Steelhead appliance so you would no longer need to move large files over the network to interrogate them in another tool, which could potentially make your problem worse! With Wireshark built in, Cascade Pilot lets you drill down and analyse multi-terabyte packet capture files through its graphical interface to pinpoint the traffic you’re looking for in a fraction of the time it would normally take, so it takes less time to fix and your network is back to normal in no time.

Cascade Pilot is already available as a 30-day trial and Teneo recommends that every Steelhead customer trials it with existing Steelheads and other packet capture devices on the network to start seeing some of the benefits above. These will only be further enhanced with an upgrade to RiOS 7.0. If you haven’t yet had access to a Cascade Pilot trial, sign up today for free! Email your Teneo account manager directly or contact us at info@teneo.net

Download the RiOS 7.0 Datasheet for the full update info.

Teneo Senior Sales Engineer Wins Riverbed Storyteller Contest

Teneo Senior Sales Engineer Daniel Thomson has won Riverbed’s Storyteller Contest after reporting that implementing Riverbed Steelhead Mobile MAC Clients has provided one of Teneo’s customers with 91% data reduction and 12x the capacity.

Teneo worked with a London-based media company, whose objective was to optimise their partners’ and customers’ ability to upload and download large media files from the road with unreliable and slow Internet access, and within tight advertising deadlines. Read the full story on Riverbed’s blog: http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/11/catching-up-on-storytellers-contest-winners.html

The Riverbed Storyteller Contest gives customers a chance to share with the Riverbed Community how adding Riverbed products to their IT infrastructure has made life better.  Have they made users happier, saved the business a ton of money or helped to meet DR windows?  Riverbed picks a theme that lasts for a few months and looks for entries that fit that theme.

Daniel is a regular contributor to the Riverbed Community Forums. Well done Daniel for submitting a successful entry!

Teneo Movember Team Raised £1,580!

Thanks to everyone that sponsored Teneo’s moustache crew who did an excellent job of raising £790 and awareness of men’s health issues associated with Movember. Teneo promised to match pound for pound whatever total our Movember team raised, which means that altogether an astounding £1,580 in donations will be passed to the various charities the Movember action supports. Fantastic joint effort and well done to the boys!!

Teneo Mo Bros

Teneo contributes to the local volunteering group

As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility plan, Teneo is a proud supporter of charity and volunteering work. We have a partnership with Plan International to build a school in Ghana and support the African charity Alive and Kicking amongst many others. We also have a volunteering scheme and recently one of Teneo’s team members has contributed to the local community and in the process helped his group win an award.

The Friends of the Loddon Group, which only formed last year, has won the Volunteer Group of the Year award from the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust. Graham Oliff, a project manager with Teneo and a work party leader of The Friends of the London Group had been granted authorized paid leave to attend First Aid and Work Party Leader courses with BBOWT, which was a fundamental requirement for their existence. The Wildlife Trust’s chairman Hugh Mellor presented the award to members of the Friends of the Loddon and concluded “They are an inspiration, showing what passionate people can achieve through teamwork and dedication”.

The Friends of the Loddon Group are directly involved in looking after the Loddon Nature Reserve in Twyford. You can find more information on the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust website.

Teneo builds a new school in Ghana

There can’t be many companies that can claim that they are helping to build a brand new school – but here at Teneo, that is exactly what we are doing! We are working with Plan UK, a fantastic charity which works across 48 countries globally to help children in the world’s poorest countries to help them build a better future.  Plan was established some 70 years ago and you may have encountered their work before – perhaps you are one of the 114,000 people in the UK who sponsor a child through Plan UK.

We started working with Plan UK early this year to identify a project we could work on.  They highlighted their work in building schools in poorer countries; since they were formed they have helped build 1,251 schools.  As a company, this is what we wanted to do – help build a school from scratch.  Plan UK, working with its team in Ghana, proposed a project to build a new pre-school in Motigu, in North West Ghana.  Motigu is a large village on the edge of the Mole National Park –where elephants roam, some 350 miles from the capital Accra.  The old, derelict pre-school was in dire need of replacement and housed 166 pre-school pupils aged between 3-6 years old.

Foundation of a new school, Motigu, North West Ghana

With an investment of £30,000 from Teneo, plus a commitment to raise £3,350 from our employees, we embarked on the project.  Land was provided by the
community and the Ghana Education Service will provide ongoing funding for teachers’ salaries and maintain the school.  Building started in April, and the build is co-ordinated by Plan UK’s locally appointed contractors with lots of help from the community.

The new school will have three classrooms, an office and storage area, and we are furnishing the classrooms throughout with desks, teaching and learning materials.  The previous school did not have sanitary toilets, or a clean supply of drinking water.  Our new school will have four latrines (two for girls, two for boys) and a supply of clean drinking water provided through a rainwater harvesting system.  We’ve even got an outdoor play area.

It’s an exciting project for us, we’ve never built a school before – and we get regular updates and pictures on the schools’ progress.  We’ve got past the rainy season that affects the area in August and September, and the building is now up to ‘window-stage’ and is on target for completion for April 2012.

Building in progress, Motigu, North West Ghana

We will keep updating on progress, and we can’t wait to see the completed school.  Our employee team are doing excellent work moving towards the fundraising target of £3,350, and have raised £2,025.  From Seth Cornwall’s ‘Bath to Newbury’ tow-path bike ride, to Jonathan Campbell’s Tatton Park Triathlon, we are making great progress.  If you would like to support our fundraising efforts, visit www.justgiving.com/teams/teneo

Please do visit the Plan UK website, and we hope you are as inspired by their work as we are.

Teneo does Movember

Teneo Carl Wyatt grows a Trucker moustache for Movember

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

On Movember 1st, guys register at Movember.com with a clean-shaven face and then for the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Mo Sistas are the women who register to support the men in their lives, raising funds by seeking sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

Teneo Marc Sollars grows The Undercover Brother before he decides which trim to do next

This year 4 of us at Teneo have taken up the challenge, and will be growing some truly ridiculous face-fuzz for a very good cause. So if we come to see you, please don’t be alarmed! http://uk.movember.com/mospace/2182590/

As part of our CSR programme, Teneo will also be matching the funds raised by the Team, so feel free to get involved.

Teneo at IP Expo 2011

Thanks to everyone who stopped by at the Teneo stand at IP Expo 2011 (19-20th October, Earls Court 2, London).  Similar to most exhibitors at the show, it is good to just take stock of how successful the event was overall and how we felt we had helped visitors to our stand.  We felt it was an excellent event with a real buzz, lots of new technology across all areas and of course, Steve Wozinak – the Woz – with lots of people queuing to get a picture or an autograph from the great man.

Our team on the Teneo stand never stopped, which is a real testament to the success of the event (and our stand!)  We had many visitors who had immediate requirements for Riverbed solutions and great interest in Palo Alto and exploring next-generation firewalls.  As soon as we put a pile of ‘Next Generation Firewalls for Dummies’ books on our table, they were whittled down to nothing in minutes.  We had many discussions with end users who are now renewing their firewalls and it is interesting to see if end users had held on to older firewalls for longer.

We found stand visitors were looking for advice on application control with Palo Alto, also visitors who wanted help to define the benefits that next-gen firewalls offer.  Being next to our vendor partner Infoblox was very useful, especially as they were serving up great coffee throughout the two days of the event, and we had plenty of visitors who are tackling IP address management (IPAM), looking for advice on IPv6 or planning to automate network change and configuration management.

Allan Tyrrell, business development manager from our vendor partner Talari, was permanently stationed at our stand and complained that he didn’t have a chance to eat his sandwich or even get a sip of water over the two days – just because so many visitors wanted to talk to him.  We also welcomed Phil Kane, Talari’s technical director to our stand to give us the low down on their solution.  If you haven’t discovered Talari yet, get in touch – if you are struggling with high leased line costs, Talari is a great solution, utilising multiple broadband and affordable internet links together to deliver business class reliability.  Combining Talari with Riverbed makes great sense, to optimise data on lower cost bandwidth.

In conclusion – a great event for Teneo, lots of great conversations and as always, lots to follow up on.  Would appreciate your views on the event – because we were pretty much welded to our stand, what did we miss out on?

Phil Kane, Technical Director from Telari meets up with Gurdeep Dhillon, Senior Sales Engineer from Teneo on the Teneo IP Expo stand

Riverbed: Cloud At Local Network Speeds

Riverbed: Delivering Cloud At Local Network Speeds

Great to see Riverbed advertising at London Heathrow Airport as our CEO Piers Carey was catching his flight back over to Teneo Inc’s offices in Virginia today. Riverbed’s cloud solutions are going from strength to strength helping businesses to quickly scale their operations at LAN-like performance levels.

Read the Riverbed Accelerating The Cloud Solution Brief

Akamai and Riverbed join forces

Akamai and Riverbed join forces to optimise & accelerate apps in the cloud!
http://ow.ly/4Yn7h

#Riverbed announces RiOS 6.5 & Cascade 9

#Riverbed announces RiOS 6.5 & Cascade 9.0 for unparalleled levels of network visibility, control & optimisation http://ow.ly/3TMhO