Riverbed Technology announced its application-aware network performance management (NPM) solution can now address network and application performance issues across the three key pillars of virtualization.

New capabilities within the Cascade 10.0 release deliver the needed performance management for virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI), server virtualization, and fully virtualized data centers using VXLAN software-defined networks (SDNs).

In addition, the Riverbed Cascade product family is now offered as a comprehensive virtual portfolio ready for deployment by service providers as well as in public, private, and hybrid clouds.

"With the spread of private clouds and virtualization, providers have been pushing for more control over the network. Current software-defined network overlay technologies being introduced by virtualization technology providers have visibility gaps, which in turn causes visibility issues for network engineers responsible for application performance troubleshooting," said Jonah Kowall, research director at Gartner. "Current monitoring and management tools must be updated and improved to see not only the traffic but the relevant additional data presented within these overlay technologies."

Cascade 10.0 provides detailed monitoring into the performance of virtualized environments, including the most popular VDI protocols, and is a NPM solution to provide visibility for VMware View (PCoIP protocol) for actions such as screen refresh, print, type, etc. These details are critical for troubleshooting and optimizing the performance of interactive applications in VDI environments.

Also supported is monitoring of the Common Internet File Systems (CIFS) protocol to ensure the performance of file sharing and collaboration applications such as Microsoft SharePoint.

The latest version of Cascade also provides performance monitoring of VXLAN SDNs by providing visibility into the UDP-encapsulated traffic and virtual tunnel endpoints.

With these VXLAN capabilities, Cascade products provide network operations teams with the ability to:

- Control and understand VXLAN virtual overlay network performance

- Monitor and troubleshoot software-defined data centers (SDDC) and the physical network in a single, easy-to-use solution

- Provide SDDC owners a singular view into their data center's performance and service level agreements (SLAs)

"VXLAN enables enterprises to deploy virtual networks with the same simplicity and operational ease that they have grown to experience with virtual machines," said Jonathan Gohstand, director, product marketing, Networking and Security at VMware. "This latest collaboration between VMware and Riverbed brings the needed integration for visibility and performance management that can allow enterprises to adopt SDNs with confidence."

The new Cascade Profiler Virtual Edition and Cascade Gateway Virtual Edition join the Cascade Shark Virtual Edition for a completely virtualized NPM solution portfolio.

Installed as a virtual machine (VM) on VMware vSphere, Cascade Profiler Virtual Edition is the centralized analysis and reporting console that integrates application and network data from Cascade Shark Virtual Edition and Cascade Gateway Virtual Edition to provide enterprise-wide, service-level monitoring. Cascade Gateway Virtual Edition collects and aggregates flow data and statistics from network infrastructure and virtual environments for delivery to Cascade Profiler Virtual Edition. The fully virtualized Riverbed Cascade product family enables managed service providers (MSPs) to easily deploy and deliver application-aware NPM as a service to their small-to-medium-sized and enterprise customers.

"With these new Cascade products, IT managers have an easy-to-use, integrated solution that empowers them to deliver the high-performing applications and networks their businesses demand," said Dimitri Vlachos, senior director of marketing and products, Cascade Business Unit at Riverbed. "IT operations can now embrace the great benefits of virtualization without giving up the visibility and control required to run today's always-on enterprise networks."