Recognized as innovative solution for reducing latency in the cloud; provides value in current economic environment

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 22 — Riverbed Technology, the IT performance company, today announced that the Riverbed Steelhead appliance was named a Best Product of 2011 by Government Computer News (GCN). GCN selected its best products of 2011 based on their ability to provide efficiency toward a specific government requirement. Steelhead appliances help government agencies meet mandates – to consolidate data centers, reduce costs for IT, and execute on the cloud-first policy – without compromising performance.

The challenges associated with distance introduced by datacenter consolidation or a move to the cloud can adversely impact performance and the user experience. Described as the product that "can cut latency out of the cloud" by GCN, Steelhead appliances accelerate application performance and data transfer over the wide area network (WAN). In addition to Steelhead appliances, Riverbed offers a suite of WAN optimization solutions that address performance challenges in public, private, and hybrid cloud environments, including Cloud Steelhead, Virtual Steelhead and Steelhead Mobile, which have provided customers with five, 50X, or even up to a 100X improvement in application performance and up to 98 percent data reduction – both critical for migrating and accelerating the transmission of applications and data deployed in public, private and hybrid clouds.

"The U.S. Federal CIO recently outlined government-wide management reforms to reduce IT spending, increase government's IT expertise and adopt innovative technologies – all of which build on existing IT initiatives and mandates. As agencies are working towards meeting these mandates, IT leaders are looking for solutions that provide cost savings and deliver performance," said William Hartwell, general manager and senior director of the Federal Markets Division at Riverbed. "U.S. government and agency customers rely on Riverbed Steelhead products to accelerate the performance of their applications, infrastructure and cloud environments, which allows them to deliver a strong ROI, achieve the goals of their IT initiatives and meet federal mandates."

More than 16,000 organizations worldwide depend on Riverbed to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT infrastructure, through solutions that overcome performance issues caused by distance, distributed computing, and ever increasing amounts of data. Riverbed offers IT performance solutions spanning WAN optimization, application-aware network performance management (NPM), application delivery, Web content optimization (WCO) and cloud data protection -- all critical technologies for successful government IT initiatives and for meeting mandates.

GCN's list of best products for 2011 was selected from "Product of the Month" and Reviewer's Choice-designated products tested this year by the GCN Lab. Read the entire GCN article titled, "The 11 Best Products of 2011" at http://gcn.com/articles/2011/11/07/11-best-products-of-2011.aspx.

Visit the Riverbed blog to watch Q&A videos with technical leader Steve Riley as he discusses Federal IT initiatives:

• Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI): http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/09/riverbed-technical-lead-steve-riley-qa-on-federal-data-center-consolidation-initiative.html
• Federal Cloud First Initiative: http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/09/riverbed-technical-lead-steve-riley-qa-on-federal-cloud-first-initiative.html
• Federal Telework and Mobility: http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/10/riverbed-technical-leader-steve-riley-qa-on-telework-and-mobility.html
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/10/riverbed-technical-leader-steve-riley-qa-on-desktop-virtualization.html
• Data Protection: http://blog.riverbed.com/2011/09/riverbed-technical-lead-steve-riley-qa-on-federal-data-protection.html

About Riverbed

Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) delivers performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance. By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organization. Additional information about Riverbed is available at www.riverbed.com.

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Source: Riverbed Technology