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.

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