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The WAN optimization space continues to gain steam as both startups and big-name vendors prepare to arm their channel partners with a bevy of new products on which to build solutions.
Startup Riverbed Technologies this week is launching a major overhaul of its portfolio that includes a revamp of its software and the debut of several new high-end appliances aimed at the enterprise.
The move follows Citrix Systems' completion last week of its purchase of Orbital Data and the unveiling of an expanded partnership with Microsoft to target the WAN optimization market with new branch-office appliances built on the acquired technology.
Solution providers said the promise of providing LAN-like application performance over the WAN to branch-office users while simultaneously saving bandwidth and enabling server consolidation into the data center has more than piqued customers' interest in WAN optimization technology.
Customers of Trace3, an Irvine, Calif.-based Riverbed partner, are seeing a 75 percent to 95 percent improvement in application performance after they deploy the vendor's WAN optimization technology, said Hayes Drumwright, CEO of Trace3. "When a client gets that kind of performance increase, you don't have much to talk about after that. They just buy it," Drumwright said.
It's also an area that's poised for tremendous growth, said Mike Thompson, president and CEO of Groupware Technology, Campbell, Calif., who said his company has had tremendous success selling WAN optimization products from Riverbed.
"It's new to customers. Many of them didn't have allocated budgets because they didn't know these products existed. The close rate will increase as customers go back and get budget for it," Thompson said.
Riverbed's technology overhaul includes the launch of its biggest appliances yetthe Steelhead 5520 and 6020. With support for an OC-3 WAN connection (155 Mbps) and 1.5 Tbytes of disk space, the 5520 offers three times the capacity of the 5010, previously Riverbed's largest model. The 6020, now its largest model, doubles that with support for two OC-3-connections (310 Mbps) and 3.2 Tbytes of disk space.
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