Riverbed Steelhead CX 1555 Series
Dedicated WAN Optimization for any Sized Environment - Large Office or Data Center

Overview:

The Riverbed Steelhead CX series features dedicated appliances designed to provide the highest performing and most scalable WAN optimization solution for any sized environment. Purpose built and singularly focused on delivering the speed, scale, and simplicity that are hallmarks of the Riverbed product family, the Steelhead CX series is powered by the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS), which thousands of organizations rely upon to deliver LAN-like performance across the wide area network (WAN). The Steelhead CX series overcomes bandwidth and geographic limitations to make users more productive, data transfers faster, and applications perform seamlessly regardless of location. The Steelhead CX series accelerates applications and reduces bandwidth utilization to enable consolidation and allow organizations to accomplish their IT goals.

The dedicated Steelhead CX series features the Riverbed market leading WAN optimization appliances available in a wide range of sizes and form factors. Whether deployed in an international naval unit that needs to optimize communication with a distributed fleet or an enterprise building out its private cloud, the Riverbed Steelhead CX series delivers the speed, scale, and simplicity needed in organization large and small. Each appliance is perfect for companies looking to do more with less and gain greater performance with their existing infrastructure.

Some of what sets Steelhead CX apart is:

High Performance Hardware – The Steelhead CX series is built to accommodate the requirements of today’s intensive network operations. The appliances feature the most robust specifications ever offered on a Steelhead appliance with more memory, CPU, connection counts, and disk (including many with SSDs).

Speed – Steelhead CX addresses performance limitations using a multi-tiered optimization approach. Steelhead products optimize traffic using a patented application agnostic algorithm to achieve massive scale data de-duplication.  The Riverbed solution layers TCP, UDP and application protocol optimization on top of its data reduction technique to deliver a multi-tiered optimization strategy that sets the technological high bar for WAN optimization and delivers un-paralleled acceleration over the WAN.

Scalability – A universal data store provides unrivaled scalability and reduces WAN optimization storage requirements. By avoiding per-peer storage limitations, companies can easily scale to hundreds of sites with any-to-any connectivity. The Steelhead CX series appliances support massive throughput volume and millions of concurrent connections. The Steelhead CX appliance enables growth and can be software upgraded between models within each form factor to provide the performance needed to stay ahead of competitors.

Simplicity – The Steelhead CX series was designed to transparently deploy in minutes without changes to applications, users, routers or other IT infrastructure. Each appliance seamlessly provides optimization with any member of the Steelhead product family and integrates in a vast array of network environments and topologies. Ongoing management is available through the powerful web-based and command line interfaces, which provide in depth reporting and NetFlow export.

Capabilities:

The demand for anywhere / anytime access to data puts tremendous strain on IT to maintain an organization's competitive edge. To keep up, companies have consolidated their IT infrastructure as a way to simplify management, increase resource utilization, and reduce costs. This greater concentration of consolidated and virtualized servers within the data center has also made data protection and replication an even greater priority. Unfortunately, these consolidated architectures often result in poor performance and increased costs due to the constraints of operating across the WAN. The Steelhead CX series allows organizations to break through this performance barrier to deliver enterprise-class WAN optimization. Key features of the Steelhead CX series include:

• Acceleration of Key Enterprise Applications
  The Steelhead CX series accelerates the broad range of applications that are critical to business.  Through a combination of data reduction, TCP and UDP optimization, and application-level protocol optimization the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) delivers dramatic performance increases across the WAN for all TCP and UDP applications, by up to 100 times
  
  
• IT Infrastructure Consolidation and Virtualization
  Steelhead CX series allows companies to consolidate IT infrastructure to cut costs and operational complexity without sacrificing performance.  Reduced bandwidth requirements and response times improve end user experience and make deploying virtual servers, desktops, and applications faster and easier than ever.
  
  
• Reduced Bandwidth Utilization
  Advanced data reduction processes typically reduce bandwidth utilization by 60% to 95%, often allowing companies to defer costly network bandwidth upgrades.
  
  
• Enhanced data protection
  Organizations can eliminate remote backup infrastructure and remediate the risk of data disclosure through lost tapes or media. By speeding data transfer, Riverbed enables speedy, resilient and secure replication and backup over the WAN, often reducing replication times from hours to minutes.
  
  
• Simplified Management
  The Steelhead CX series is designed to transparently deploy in minutes without changes to applications, users, routers, or other IT infrastructure. Each appliance seamlessly provides optimization with any member of the Steelhead product family and integrates in a vast array of network environments and topologies. Ongoing management is available through the powerful web-based and command line interfaces, which provide in-depth reporting and NetFlow export.
  
  
• High-performance Hardware
  The Steelhead CX series is built to accommodate the requirements of today's intensive network operations. The appliances are available in a wide range of sizes and form factors and feature more memory, CPU, connections, and disk (including many with SSDs) than their predecessors in the xx50 series.
  
  
• Cost Effective Deployment
  More robust specifications and the power of RiOS improve disaster recovery/replication performance and enable greater consolidation to the data center without sacrificing performance or requiring massive amounts of increased bandwidth.  Whether deployed at an international naval unit needing to optimize communication within a distributed fleet or an enterprise building out to the private cloud, the Steelhead CX series delivers the performance and ROI necessary to ensure a project’s success.

Features and Benefits:

The Steelhead CX series is a dedicated appliance that is perfect for organizations of any size looking to do more with less and gain strategic advantage by delivering more performance with their existing infrastructure. Steelhead CX delivers this by:

• Accelerating applications – Steelhead CX accelerates all TCP and many UDP applications through a multi-tiered optimization approach to increase performance up to100x. Faster applications means greater productivity and a more profitable business.
• Cutting server costs – Virtualize safely and consolidate more servers to the data center without sacrificing performance
• Enabling cheaper, faster DR – Replication or backup from the branch or between data centers can be accelerated with no need for additional bandwidth and without a longer backup window.
• Saving bandwidth – Customers can free up 60 – 95 percent of existing bandwidth for other uses.

Network Integration and Deployment Options

• Transparency – Export real-time flows from a Steelhead appliance to a third-party Netflow collector (including v.9), giving full visibility into WAN traffic by source, destination, IP address, application port, and more
• Auto discovery – Appliances automatically find in-path peers in the network, with no tunnel configurations required
• Deployment – Installs transparently in-line or as a "one arm" attachment to routers/switches with direct configuration, WCCP, PBR, and L4 switch redirection modes
• Multi-port interfaces – 4 Port GigE Card available (optional on all rackable models); Up to 3 cards (12 ports total) per Steelhead appliance
• Asymmetric routing – Asymmetric route detection and connection forwarding for support of route asymmetry on both the client and server sides
• Network agnostic – Full mesh, hub and spoke, and multi-drop topologies supported; MPLS, IP VPN, Satellite, Frame, ATM and any other IP transport supported
• Seamless integration – Works easily with existing QoS, VoIP, video conferencing and other real-time traffic

Management and Policy

• Configuration – Web UI, CLI, and Central Management Console (CMC), Steelhead Management Console (SMC)
• Marking – DSCP, port, and VLAN mapping and/or preservation. Automatic port-toapplication mapping for reporting
• Reporting – Robust real-time performance statistics gathering, export, and graphical reporting; local, CMC, SMC, and Syslog logging; report on traffic by QoS class, application, and more; SNMP support
• Optimization policy – Per-application admission and optimization controls
• Bandwidth management – HFSC-based QoS allows for application prioritization, low-latency queuing for VoIP; settable WAN bandwidth rate controls included

High Availability

• Clustering – Serial (in-path), parallel (out-of-path), or virtual in-path clustering for massive scalability
• Fail-to-wire – Ensures no loss in network connectivity in the event of device failure
• N:1 and 1:1 redundancy – Hot-standby redundancy and N:1 clustering
• Redundant disk and power – Available RAID and dual power supplies on larger models
• Dual image SW upgrades – Schedule over-the-wire software upgrades with dual image, rollback, and scheduled restart/reboot
• Fault Tolerant Solid State Disks (SSDs) – In the 7050 series of Steelhead appliances for combining high availability and higher performance

Security

• SSL acceleration that maintains traffic encryption without breaking the preferred trust model
• RADIUS and TACACS+ support for authenticating access
• Configurable SSL encryption for WAN traffic
• Secure registration ensures only approved devices communicate with the central management console (CMC)
• Support for Microsoft Online and other online services from Microsoft

Technical Specifications:

Steelhead Appliances are available in a range of different models to suit the needs of any office.

	Small Office		Mid-Size Office			Large Office or Data Center
Model	555 Series		755 Series			1555 Series
Configurations	M	H	L	M	H	L	M	H
Profile	Desktop		Desktop			1U Rackmount
Upgradeable to	555 H	-	755 M	-	-	1555 M	-	-
Optimized WAN Capacity1	6 Mbps	10 Mbps	10 Mbps	10 Mbps	20 Mbps	45 Mbps	45 Mbps	90 Mbps
Optimized TCP Connections2	350	650	900	1,500	2,300	3,000	4,500	6,000
QoS Bandwidth3	10 Mbps	10 Mbps	45 Mbps	45 Mbps	45 Mbps	100 Mbps	100 Mbps	100 Mbps
QoS Rules/Classes4	500	500	1,000	1,000	1,000	2,000	2,000	2,000
Raw Capacity5	500 GB	500 GB	500 GB	500 GB	410 GB	2,000 GB	2,000 GB	1,320 GB
Data Store Capacity	80 GB	80 GB	100 GB	100 GB	160 GB SSD	400 GB	400 GB	320 GB SSD
Storage Fault Tolerance	-		-			RAID6	RAID6	RAID6
Hot Swappable Drives	-		-			4	4	4
RAM	2GB		2GB	2GB	4GB	8 GB	8 GB	8 GB
Expansion Slots (PCI-e)7	-		-			2
Onboard Bypass ports (Copper)	4		4			4
Max # of Bypass Ports	4		4			12
Power & Physical Spec.	555 Series		755 Series			1555 Series
Dual Power Supplies	-		-			Yes
Power [Watts] (Typical)	40		50			175
BTU	145		165			605
Temperature	0 - 45 deg C / 32 - 113 deg F (Operating) -40 - 65 deg C / -40 - 149 deg F (Storage)					10 - 40 deg C / 50 - 104 deg F (Operating) -40 - 65 deg C / -40 - 149 deg F (Storage)
Relative Humidity8	20% - 80% non-condensing (Operating), 5% - 95% non-condensing (Storage)
Operating Acoustic Noise (Typical)	45 dBA					62 dBA
System Dimensions (LxWxH)9	7.1 x 12 x 1.65 in 180.3 x 304.8 x 42 mm					25.4 x 17.2 x 1.71 in 645.4 x 436 x 43.5 mm
Packaging Dimensions	17.5 x 12 x 3.87 in 444.5 x 304.8 x 174.6 mm					36.25 x 23.38 x 12.5 in 920.8 x 593.7 x 317.5 mm
Max Weight (without packaging)	4.7 Lbs / 2.15 Kg					36 Lbs / 16.36 Kg
Rail Information	Mounting ears included. Orderable spare part RMK-001					Mounting rail kit inlcuded. Orderable spare part RMK-002A

(1) Outbound WAN capacity is up to the amount listed.
(2) TCP Connections can be expected up to the amount listed
(3) Maximum outbound QoS shaping capacity
(4) Total of classes plus rules
(5) Includes HDD's with SSD's
(6) RAID 10 configuration for HDD, Data store uses fault tolerant striped (FTS) configuration for SSD/HDD
(7) Optional Network Bypass cards: Dual and Quad LX and SX GigE Fiber GigE, Quad Copper GigE,
(8) Operating altitude up to 10,000 feet
(9) Length is without bezel

Deployment:

Optimization Everywhere: the Steelhead CX Series in a Riverbed Deployment

Riverbed optimizes the widest range of enterprise applications.

Steelhead Products Accelerate a Broad Range of Applications

Steelhead appliancess accelerate the widest range of enterprise applications.

Technological Leadership to Enable Your Business:

Riverbed Steelhead products have been proven to dramatically accelerate application performance in some of the most demanding customer environments. Our customers range from the Fortune 50 and Global 1000, to companies with one office.

Riverbed's award-winning products have consistently proven themselves as the highest performing WAN optimization solutions, consistently earning recognition as the "Technology of the Year - WAN Accelerators" by InfoWorld for six years running, and have been positioned by Gartner in the leaders quadrant in the "Magic Quadrant for WAN Optimization Controllers" report.

IT Infrastructure Consolidation - The Performance Trade-Off

Many organizations are looking to consolidate their IT infrastructure as a way to simplify management, increase resource utilization, and reduce costs. Unfortunately, the consolidated IT model can often result in diminished application performance and a hit to user productivity that offsets any consolidation cost savings. Riverbed Steelhead products allow users to access consolidated IT resources without trading off performance.

Moving into the Cloud

Whether companies are consolidating their IT infrastructure to create a "private cloud" infrastructure or outsourcing their infrastructure to Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) or Platform as a Service (PAAS) vendors that provide "public cloud" infrastructure, the limitations on bandwidth and latency still remain. End users are far away from the data and applications they are trying to access, which results in poor user response and inefficient data delivery. Deploying WAN optimization appliances is a great way to defeat both these problems, while saving money on costly bandwidth upgrades. In short, WAN optimization can be the driving force to enable consolidation to public or private cloud architectures.

The Stateless Branch Office

Companies are approaching consolidation and virtualization of IT in branch offices in two ways. First, moving servers and storage out of the branch and into data centers where it can be more efficiently aggregated and managed, and then delivering access back to end users across the WAN. Second, taking local branch office servers and virtualizing them to run directly on VMware on the Steelhead appliances that are already deployed in every site, for edge services like printing or security. With no more complex build outs or remote servers to buy, install and manage, branches get set up faster and leaner, administrative overhead decreases, and users are more productive.

Enhanced Data Protection - The New Paradigm

Headline stories about tapes falling off trucks and the potential leakage of sensitive data have become all too common for both the enterprise and the consumer. CxOs require assurance that sensitive data will remain private and are looking for ways to reduce their data loss risk. With Riverbed, organizations can perform WAN-based backups or data replication without struggling to finish jobs in a tight backup window. Most enterprise storage vendors' solutions, including EMC and HDS, are already supported and previously unacceptable performance on the WAN can be improved by over 30 times with enhanced support for protocols such as FCIP and SRDF/A.

With accelerated replication, customers can also take more frequent snapshots and dramatically improve their recovery time in the event of a failure. Riverbed has advanced features for high end data center to data center disaster recovery, including special enhancements for more optimized throughput, tunable compression, and clustering for high availability and scalability. Customers can "fill the pipe" for high bandwidth environments maximizing speed, or choose to adopt higher compression, deduplication, and QoS to limit the impact on bandwidth for other applications on a shared WAN.

Enabling the Mobile Workforce

IT has often struggled to support remote users who need access to corporate data and applications, and mobile users have come to expect sub-optimal performance when they work remotely. Steelhead Mobile software extends Riverbed's award-winning technology to any PC or laptop to deliver acceleration wherever users connect. With Steelhead Mobile, applications run faster and remote workers are no longer "remote." Desktop virtualization solutions can also be optimized for use on the WAN.

Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS):

RiOS software powers Steelhead products through a combination of patented data reduction, TCP and UDP optimization, and application- level protocol optimizations. Together, these technologies, along with RiOS management capabilities, provide a comprehensive solution for enterprise WAN optimization. RiOS consists of four key components:

Data streamlining – RiOS data streamlining works across all TCP and UDP applications to reduce bandwidth utilization, typically by 60-95 percent. Data streamlining works across file sharing, email, CAD, ERP, VDI, web-based HTTP and HTTPS applications, databases , and all other applications that use TCP and UDP.

Transport streamlining – RiOS transport streamlining reduces the number of TCP packets required to transfer data by 65-98 percent. Transport streamlining also enables the acceleration of SSL-encrypted traffic throughout the enterprise to eliminate the security and performance trade-off. With HS-TCP and MX-TCP, RiOS can enable greater utilization of high bandwidth links (i.e. long fat networks (LFN) such as OC3, OC12, metrofiber).

Application streamlining – RiOS application streamlining offers the broadest support of application-specific modules for key enterprise applications to provide additional application performance improvements on top of the data streamlining and transport streamlining optimizations performed on all TCP traffic. By reducing application protocol chattiness up to 98 percent and minimizing application overhead, RiOS can provide massive throughput increases to applications including file sharing (CIFS and NFS), Exchange (MAPI), Lotus Notes, Web (HTTP and HTTPS),database (MS-SQL and Oracle) and storage protocols like FCIP and SRDF/A (EMC).

Management streamlining – RiOS enables easy deployment through auto-discovery of peers and auto-interception of traffic, with no reconfiguration of clients, servers, or routers. Many customers deploy Steelhead products in minutes and RiOS simplifies ongoing management by providing simple, but powerful web-based and command-line interfaces, in-depth reporting and real-time NetFlow export. Simple integration into the network has led to Riverbed deployments in a vast array of network environments and topologies including, but not limited to, MPLS, VoIP, video conferencing, QoS, VPN, satellite infrastructure, ATM, frame relay, microwave, and wireless.

Documentation:

Download the Riverbed Steelhead CX Series Datasheet (.PDF)

Download the Riverbed Steelhead Product Family with Granite SpecSheet (.PDF)