Riverbed Releases Enterprise-Class Server Consolidation Solution

Riverbed (RVBD) has introduced a new release of its Granite product family, delivering an enterprise-class solution for server and data consolidation. With the new release IT managers can now extend the benefits of Granite to larger branch offices and data-intensive applications that previously were difficult or impossible to consolidate.

Granite 2.5

The new release includes new Granite 2.5 software that adds support for Fibre Channel to its existing iSCSI support, enabling Granite solutions to now support over 90 percent of the current enterprise-class storage array market. Granite 2.5 also improves data protection with automated snapshots and simplified support for existing data-center class backup and recovery software. It also adds Fibre Channel support for the virtual Granite Core that extends integration with enterprise-class storage arrays, including those from EMC, NetApp and IBM.

“We see the expanded flexibility of Granite 2.5 in the data center as a big win – both from a storage and a data protection standpoint,” said Mike Rinken, director of information technology at Mazzetti, an engineering design and consulting firm.  “In our business where large CAD files have been moving toward a more collaborative parametric modeling data set, more resources for Granite Edge appliances make perfect sense.  We can consolidate even more data and still make sure branch users get the local performance they need to be effective.  We’re excited to have the flexibility of utilizing Fibre Channel storage and how Riverbed is extending their storage footprint by offering more robust devices.”

New Steelhead EX 1360

Riverbed also announced a new EX 3160 Steelhead appliance, delivering local-speed experience for applications that need high-performance storage access such as high-volume transaction databases and geographic information systems (GIS) data modeling files that require high input/output per second (IOPS). The new Steelhead appliance also enables organizations with larger data workloads to increase the amount of data it can lock within the appliance cache, increasing the ability of branch offices with larger data sets to maintain productivity, even during WAN outages.

Granite 2.5 and Steelhead EX 1360 model appliances are expected to be generally available in the third quarter of 2013.