Services Platforms (RSP/VSP)
Riverbed Services Platform and Virtual Services Platform are dedicated virtual platforms running on SteelHead appliances

Riverbed Services Platform (RSP):

The Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) provides customers with the capability to run up to five additional services and applications virtually on VMware in a protected partition on the SteelHead xx50 and some xx20 appliances. RSP allows customers to deploy local services in all of their branch offices without the need to deploy and maintain standalone servers to run the applications. Businesses benefit by eliminating the hardware needed at the branch office, enabling companies to consolidate IT operations even further, reducing costs, and simplifying administration, all while still delivering high quality local services. The combination of RSP and the WAN optimization features of SteelHead appliances create an ultra-efficient branch solution.

Some of what makes RSP great:

Enhanced ROI: A simple upgrade to xx50 and most xx20 appliances combines WAN optimization and branch office services onto a single appliance to offer greater overall value
Application flexibility: Run existing virtual services or Riverbed Technology Alliance (RTA) partner packages.

• Runs up to five virtual machines
• Ability to add virtual disk space to packages
• Support for iSCSI targets from a hosted windows package
• Enhanced watchdog for higher availability
• Runs both the SteelHead Mobile Controller (SMC-VE) or Cascade Sensor-VE
• Works virtually inpath
• Supports tested applications from a wide variety of category-leading products, as well as any VMware virtual machine

Branch Office Box solution delivering virtualized branch services on SteelHead appliances

Consolidation and virtualization are hot trends in IT, helping organizations increase their flexibility in delivering valuable services and reduce costs. The enhanced Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) provides customers with the capability to run up to five additional services and applications virtually on VMware in a protected partition on the SteelHead appliance. This revolutionary approach allows customers to deploy local services in all their branch offices without the need to deploy and maintain full-blown servers to run the applications. The business benefits are minimizing the hardware needed at the branch office, enabling companies to consolidate IT operations even further, reducing costs, and simplifying administration, all while still delivering high quality local services. Combine RSP with the WAN optimization features of SteelHead appliances to achieve an efficient "branch in a box" solution.

IT Consolidation at the Edge

Organizations have widely implemented IT infrastructure consolidation measures to reap many of the well known benefits: simplified management, lower costs, and improved data protection and resource utilization. Despite these efforts, there are still essential "edge" services such as printing, DNS, DHCP and File Services that defy many central consolidation efforts. The RSP now allows organizations to run these services on the SteelHead appliance, so organizations can eliminate these now unnecessary servers to further reduce hardware, software, and maintenance costs and IT complexity.

Game-changing Architecture

The RSP is uniquely suited to branch office server consolidation and virtualization. The SteelHead appliance is the only wide area network (WAN) optimization device to run industry leading technology from VMware as the virtualization platform, taking advantage of the skills companies already have in house. Virtual servers run in a protected zone and do not impact the resources needed for peak SteelHead appliance operations. The RSP also enables customers to run up to five different virtual machines at once, eliminating many more servers from the branch office. And, the RSP runs on most SteelHead appliance models, enabling customers to benefit without having to replace their previous investments in Riverbed.

There are a number of features designed to make RSP even better value for customers. The RSP can be further extended by deploying Riverbed packages like the SteelHead Mobile Controller Virtual Edition and Cascade Sensor Virtual Edition on the RSP. The RSP has advanced network rules capabilities, guaranteeing that data travels in and out from the LAN or WAN in a fashion that matches the nature of the application being served. Further, the RSP includes the ability to add virtual disk space to packages to support growth without having to recreate the image. In addition, RSP also has support for iSCSI targets from a hosted windows package thus allowing our customers to extend edge storage by connecting to an iSCSI device. For higher availability RSP has two options. One is the heartbeat process by which failure of individual VMs can be determined and the watchdog process could restart the VM. The second one is where a secondary appliance is used to snapshot VMs from the primary appliance. In case of the failure of the primary appliance, the VMs on the secondary are restarted. All these options make the RSP a great platform for your branch services.

Benefiting from the Riverbed Technology Alliance (RTA), the RSP also supports tested applications from a wide variety of category leading products, as well as any VMware virtual machine.

RTA partners with software that can be run on the RSP

Riverbed Packages – SteelHead Mobile Controller VE - Manages SteelHead Mobile licenses and controls the deployment, management, and reporting of SteelHead Mobile software clients.

Cascade Sensor VE - Enables seamless performance measurement and delivers network visibility in both optimized and non-optimized environments - without requiring expensive physical probes in every branch office.

Edge Services Solution – Enable services like DC, AD, file and print serving, streaming media and BranchCache while delivering LANlike performance for end users around the globe.
PARTNERS: Microsoft (Windows Server 2008 R2, 2008 or 2003) – Print Server, AD, DC, File Serving

Security Solution – Delivers an End-to-End security solution with the flexibility to choose the best of breed security vendors.
PARTNERS: Checkpoint (Security Gateway R70 – Firewall, VPN), Websense (Web Filtering), McAfee (Firewall Enterprise Virtual Edition), Microsoft (Threat Management Gateway)

Video Solution – Delivers a complete video communications and streaming solution that captures and manages live and ondemand video, distributes Flash and Windows Media formats, and reduces the impact of video bandwidth consumption on the network.
PARTNERS: Microsoft (Windows Media Services), Qumu (MediaNet)

Networking & Management Solution – Helps deliver routing and end-to-end visibility into application performance. Also provides the ability to manage and monitor application response times and SLA requirements at the branch office.
PARTNERS: SkipWare (SCPS), Infoblox (DNS, DHCP, IPAM, RADIUS, TFTP, NTP), OpNet(ACE Live), Vyatta(Router)

Virtual Services Platform (VSP):

The Riverbed Virtual Services Platform (VSP) runs in a dedicated partition on SteelHead EX series appliances to give organizations the opportunity to consolidate previously un-consolidateable services onto a high performance branch office box. VSP features a VMware hypervisor to run virtualized instances of a company’s own services or take advantage of applications designed for VSP by a Riverbed Technology Alliance (RTA) partner. VSP allows fine-grained configuration of data rules to allow virtualized services to run in or out of path, all without any impact on core WAN optimization performance. Using this revolutionary approach, IT leaders can deploy edge services virtually in all of their branch offices without having to deploy and maintain standalone servers to run the applications, enabling organizations to consolidate IT operations even further. VSP helps organizations reduce complexity, cut costs, and simplify management, while simultaneously delivering essential local services.

Some of what makes VSP so great are:

• Enhanced ROI: Standard on SteelHead EX series appliances combining WAN optimization and branch office services onto a single appliance
• Dedicated VMware Hypervisor: Take full advantage of VMware expertise and hypervisor capabilities to lower branch office capital and operational costs
• Advanced network rules capabilities: Centralized monitoring of virtual instances with Riverbed management tools
• Application flexibility: Run existing virtual services or Riverbed Technology Alliance Partner packages
• Support for iSCSI targets from a hosted windows package
• Integrated watchdog for higher availability
• Runs both the SteelHead Mobile Controller (SMC-VE) or Cascade Sensor-VE as well as other qualified and customer packages
• Packages and SteelHead EX appliances can be deployed in-path or virtually in path, using WCCP and PBR
• Supports tested applications from a wide variety of category-leading products, as well as any VMware virtual machine

Virtualized Branch Services on the SteelHead EX Series

The Riverbed Virtual Services Platform (VSP) runs in a dedicated partition on Riverbed SteelHead EX series appliances to give organizations the opportunity to consolidate services onto a high-performance branch office box. VSP is built with VMware's market leading virtualization technology to run instances of a company's existing services or to take advantage of applications designed for VSP by a Riverbed Technology Alliance Partner. VSP features ample dedicated memory and disk to ensure virtual machine performance without compromise. Management has never been easier thanks to tightly integrated, fine-grained configuration of data rules which allow virtualized services to run in or out of path, all without any impact on core WAN optimization performance. Using this approach, IT leaders can virtualize their edge services at all of their branch offices without having to deploy and maintain standalone servers to run applications. Consolidating and virtualizing with the Riverbed SteelHead EX series streamlines operations, helps cut costs, and simplifies management, without any effect on service delivery.

IT Consolidation at the Edge

Consolidation and virtualization have helped organizations increase their flexibility, improve service delivery, and reduce costs. Unfortunately, many of these benefits haven't extended to some local services. Even with most applications and file services centralized, services like print, DNS, DHCP, and firewalls needed to remain in the branch office. Maintaining onsite servers dedicated to each service increases the overhead of each branch and creates additional management complexity. With the SteelHead Virtual Services Platform (VSP) customers can run additional services and applications virtually on a protected partition on the SteelHead EX series appliance without compromising performance.

Branch Office Box Architecture

The VSP is uniquely suited to branch office server consolidation and virtualization. The SteelHead EX series comes standard with a dedicated VMware virtualization platform to deliver the benefits of WAN optimization and virtualization on a single branch office appliance. Architected to deliver the best of both worlds, virtual servers run in a protected zone and do not impact the resources needed for SteelHead appliance operations. VSP takes advantage of the high performance specifications to run multiple virtual machines on a single SteelHead EX series appliance, eliminating servers from the branch office. Management of VSP reflects the simplicity built into every Riverbed product. Close integration with SteelHead management tools allows IT leaders to leverage their existing management expertise to lower the cost to operate each branch. VSP offers advanced network rules capabilities to guarantee that data travels in and out from the LAN or WAN in a fashion that matches the nature of the application being served. VSP also has support for iSCSI targets, which allow customers to extend edge storage by connecting to an iSCSI device. All these options combine to make the VSP a true enterprise-class branch office box.

The flexibility of VSP allows organizations the freedom to run their own applications as well as a rich selection of tested applications from a variety of category leading vendors in the Riverbed Technology Alliance (RTA),

Sample Riverbed Technology Alliance Partner Packages

Riverbed Packages:

Riverbed SteelHead Mobile Controller VE - Manages SteelHead Mobile licenses and controls the deployment, management, and reporting of SteelHead Mobile software clients.

Riverbed Cascade Sensor VE - Enables seamless performance measurement and delivers network visibility in both optimized and nonoptimized environments - without requiring expensive physical probes in every branch office.

Edge Service Solutions: Enables services like DC, AD, file and print serving, streaming media and BranchCache while delivering LANlike performance for end users around the globe.
PARTNERS: Microsoft (Windows Server 2008 R2, 2008 or 2003) – Print Server, AD, DC, File Serving

Security Solutions: Delivers an end-to-end security solution with the flexibility to choose the best-of-breed security vendors.
PARTNERS: McAfee (Firewall Enterprise Virtual Edition, McAfee Web Gateway), Microsoft (Threat Management Gateway), Checkpoint (Security Gateway R70 – Firewall, VPN), Websense (Web Filtering)

Video Solutions: Delivers a complete video communications and streaming solution that captures and manages live and on-demand video, distributes Flash and Windows Media formats, and reduces the impact of video bandwidth consumption on the network.
PARTNERS: Microsoft (Windows Media Services), Polycom, Qumu (MediaNet), Accordent

Networking & Management Solutions: Helps deliver routing and end-to-end visibility into application performance. Also provides the ability to manage and monitor application response times and SLA requirements at the branch office.
PARTNERS: SkipWare (SCPS), Infoblox (DNS, DHCP, IPAM, RADIUS, TFTP, NTP), OpNet(ACE Live), Vyatta(Router)

Documentation:

Download the Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) Datasheet (.PDF)

Download the Riverbed Virtual Services Platform (VSP) DataSheet (.PDF)