Riverbed Incorporates Video Traffic in Optimizer

WAN optimization specialist Riverbed added flesh to the bones of its services strategy today, unveiling a flash video-streaming solution for its Steelhead appliances.

Riverbed first discussed its plans to dive into third-party services earlier this year, carving out a partition within its RiOS operating system.

Under the terms of the deal announced today, video specialist Wowza will offer its Media Server software as a module within the RiOS partition. The vendors claim that this could slash users' video traffic running across the WAN by as much as 98 percent.

"This is for any organization that has a need to reach a large number of users with video content," says Harold Byun, Riverbed's senior product marketing manager. "As companies are trying to push more data and more dynamic content through the enterprise, it consumes more and more bandwidth."

The Wowza Media Server/RiOS combo, which runs on Riverbed's Steelhead appliances, is aimed at users looking to stream both Flash video and live content, but not necessarily data-hungry Web 2.0 companies ."I don't see YouTube leveraging this type of service," says Byun, explaining that the Steelhead appliances are typically used for internal, not external, network links. "This is used for internal training videos, management de-briefs to employees, and compliance videos -- as a company rolls out new products or operational changes, they want to get their employees up to speed as quickly as possible."

Pricing for the Wowza Media Server module, which is available now, starts at $995 for a perpetual license, although users also need to pay a one-off $495 fee to activate Riverbed's RiOS Services Platform (RSP).

Riverbed's Byun told Byte and Switch that around half a dozen users are currently testing the Wowza Media Server and RiOS, but would not reveal the identities of the firms involved.

Undeterred, the vendor is pressing ahead with its plan to offer additional third-party services on RiOS, which will include an IP address management service, likely to come from Infoblox, and a security offering from Secure Computing.

"The IP address management piece should be available very shortly [and] the security component is potentially available later this year," says Byun.Riverbed is not the only vendor looking to tie additional services around WAN optimization, although these have often focused on routers. Earlier this year, for example, Expand Networks announced plans to offer its WAN optimization solution on 3Com's Multi-Service Router.

Cisco has also taken a similar approach, offering its Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) technology as a solution on its Integrated Services Router (ISR), although this is also available as a standalone appliance.

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