Riverbed Integrates CACE with Cascade

Riverbed Technology (RVBD) last week introduced an enhanced architecture for its Cascade network performance management (NPM) solution that leverages technology from its 2010 acquisition of CACE Technologies, makers of the popular Wireshark and WinPcap tools for network traffic capture and analysis. The latest update from Riverbed fully integrates the application-aware network performance management (NPM) functionality of Cascade Profiler with the Cascade Shark network traffic recording appliance and Cascade Pilot network analysis software.

This announcement for enhancing NPM is a major integration to a complete performance monitoring and management solution that does a top to bottom drill down of network traffic. Cascade is the only NPM solution on the market that fully consolidates real-time business-level performance views with packet-level analysis all in a single data set that users can navigate in order to diagnose and troubleshoot network and application performance problems.

“Cascade customers have turned to Riverbed to help them better understand how to deliver high-performance IT services to their organizations. This solution offers customers a unique, seamless approach to quickly diagnose, troubleshoot and resolve network problems and deliver these essential IT services to keep the business running productively and improve the user experience,” said Apurva Davé, vice president of product marketing at Riverbed.

DEEP drill-down

Similar to how an online maps session can drill from a globe to street level with ease, Riverbed Cascade can start at a single geographic point in the network and drill down to a specific device that may be displaying problems.  With the new integration the traffic at the particular problem point can be sent to Wireshark for an even deeper analysis of packets and netflow data.  It is a modern, cost-effective capture and analysis solution that adds retrospective and real-time packet-level analysis capabilities.

There are a number of Wireshark enhancement products available at Riverbed for a variety of uses. Analyzing wireless networks has obviously grown tremendously in recent years, especially big deployments at universities.  The Riverbed case study for Boston College shows how they were able to use Cascade to stay ahead of growing network complexity across three campuses, supporting 15,000 students.

“Cascade is the first place we go when we get a call from a user,” says Ann Murphy, the Associate Director, Network Systems for Boston College. “We now have a much more effective network management process, and can quickly determine where a problem is in the network and what applications or services are being impacted by it Our goal is to be in an increasingly proactive mode where we know about network and application problems before the user reports them.”

Best Places to Work award

Riverbed was recently ranked third among large companies on the San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal Best Places to Work in the Bay Area 2011.  CEO Jerry Kennelly credits company success to a collaborative environment where traits such as openness, creativity and diversity are valued. From the beginning in 2002 as a small start-up through its growth into a global market leader, Riverbed has retained a flat management structure and the spirit of entrepreneurship that contribute greatly to the company’s success.