Data Center Links: Riverbed, Juniper, Dell, Citrix

Here’s our review of some of this week’s noteworthy links for the data center industry:

Riverbed endorsed by Juniper for WAN Optimization. Juniper (JNPR) and Riverbed (RVBD) announced that Juniper has endorsed Riverbed as Juniper's provider of choice for wide area network (WAN) optimization solutions. Under this endorsement, Riverbed is offering a trade-in program for customers who have purchased Juniper Networks WX and WXC Series Application Acceleration Platforms to migrate and upgrade to the Riverbed Steelhead product family. The trade-in program from Riverbed provides Juniper customers and reseller partners with significant cost-saving incentives in addition to benefits that come with the Steelhead products. "Riverbed offers the most comprehensive set of performance solutions that are easy to install and manage in even the most complex, large-scale environments," said Eric Wolford, executive vice president and general manager, products group, Riverbed. "Through this partnership, we are working with Juniper to deliver our market-leading WAN optimization solutions to enterprises that need performance and scale in the traditional data center, as well as virtualized and cloud environments."

Dell launches smart grid data management solution. Dell announced the availability of a new bundled solution designed to help electric utility companies smartly manage their distribution networks, minimize and potentially avoid outages and improve service to their customers through an innovative application of smart grid technologies.The Dell Smart Grid Data Management Solution  combines high-performance computing, networking and storage to manage data and provide actionable results in real-time. The reference architecture uses 12th generation Dell servers, PCI Express Flash drives and Dell Force10 high-performance 10/40GbE network switches. “Smart grid technologies have the potential to revolutionize the way power is produced, delivered, used and conserved – but only if we can effectively capture, analyze and respond to the data that is generated,” said Jeff Gillespey, global energy sales director for Dell. “Managing the data deluge is imperative for utility companies that want to make their operations more efficient, and Dell is committed to giving them the power to improve productivity and enhance service levels.”

Citrix invests in AppEnsure. Citrix Startup Accelerator, a corporate initiative investing in early stage startups, today announced an investment in AppEnsure, a new Application Performance Management  Platform provider that ensures high performance for enterprise applications as they virtualize and move to the cloud. A $100,000 investment will be made to AppEnsure, which was chosen to become part of the Citrix Startup Accelerator because of its unique ability to deliver application performance insurance in dynamic virtualized and cloud computing environments. “As we move into a fully virtualized IT infrastructure, the AppEnsure technology provides a new and fresh approach to end-to-end application performance visibility," said Martin Duursma, VP of Citrix Labs and CTO Office Chair, Citrix. "We are excited to watch the technology from AppEnsure take shape as a result of our investment.”