Riverbed streamlines Unix for faster WANs

Riverbed has upgraded its WAN optimization software so customers can reduce the time it takes to send Unix files across wide-area connections.

With Release 3.0 of RiOS software for Riverbed Steelhead WAN optimization devices, the company says it can make network file server (NFS) protocol less chatty, which translates into less traffic having to cross WAN links when Unix files are sent. This means the links and the protocol perform better.

One customer that beta tested RiOS 3.0 says it reduced NFS transaction times to 30% of what they were before. Aircraftassembly design firm ElectroImpact in Mukilteo, Wash., already used Steelhead devices and has upgraded to RiOS 3.0 in its home office and at two sites in the United Kingdom, says Jon Wilson, senior network engineer for the firm.

The previous version of the software sped up mixed traffic on the connections so that a 5GB sample that took more than an hour to transfer without the device took just a minute and a half,Wilson says.

Like other WAN optimization vendors, Riverbed uses multiple methods for speeding up traffic, including compression, storing large traffic patterns so they can be tapped locally rather than across the WAN1TCP optimization and application optimization. The company competes against Certeon, Expand Networks, F5 Networks, Juniper and Racketeer.

Riverbed has software that optimizes common Internet file systems traffic as well as MAPI,HTTP and MS-SQL traffic.

RiOS 3.0 also adds support for Cisco's NetFlow records so network administrators can better track traffic that passes through Steelhead devices.Wilson says he uses the feature as a troubleshooting tool. The combination of NetFlow and Steelhead data lets him look at overall network traffic and discover congestion points from a single application rather than having to monitoring multiple devices. Once he has located trouble, he uses other tools to pinpoint the cause of the problem.

He says he is also using the QoS feature that is part of RiOS 3.0 to prioritize VoIP traffic. "We used to get the occasional stutter with the VoIP, but we don't get it now," he says.

Riverbed also has announced a new hardware device called Interceptor 9200 that parcels out traffic to deployments of multiple Steelhead appliances at a single site. If a company needs 10 Steelheads at headquarters to handle all the traffic from its remote offices, the Interceptor would handle the traffic first and disburse it to the Steelheads using round-robin queuing (see graphic).

A Fortune 500 financial firm beta testing the device that spoke on condition of anonymity says Interceptor would replace policybased routing it now uses to distribute the traffic. Policy-based routing is more complex and more difficult to troubleshoot than the Riverbed device, the firm says. Interceptor 9200 costs $50,000.

Riverbed also is introducing two Steelhead devices, one of which is its top-of-the line Steelhead 6020. The 6020 has throughput of 310Mbps and support for 40,000 simultaneous TCP connections. It costs $120,000. The other is the Steelhead 5520, which supports 155Mbps throughput and 15,000 simultaneous TCP connections. It costs $70,000.