Riverbed announced Riverbed SaaS Accelerator, a breakthrough new solution that significantly accelerates the performance of leading SaaS apps, such as O365, Salesforce, ServiceNow and Box, by up to 10 times.

When SaaS Accelerator is combined with End User Experience Monitoring (part of Riverbed’s Digital Experience Management offering), organizations can for the first time directly measure and monitor in real time the performance of SaaS-based enterprise applications, and then effortlessly accelerate performance with SaaS Accelerator.

For enterprises with a distributed workforce, or where today’s users are accessing applications on demand from branch offices, airports, client sites and coffee shops, and are often located far from SaaS servers, the new SaaS Accelerator solution can dramatically improve user experience and business outcomes by eliminating performance gaps and disruptions that interfere with an employee’s ability to stay connected, satisfied and productive. By dramatically improving the performance of critical SaaS applications, globally distributed organizations can radically accelerate time to market, increase competitiveness and drive revenue growth.

As a cloud-based solution, SaaS Accelerator enables organizations to turn up the service within minutes so they can benefit immediately from improved performance, and Riverbed SD-WAN customers benefit from one-click provisioning using the Riverbed SD-WAN management console. Additionally, existing SteelHead appliance and SteelHead Mobile customers can leverage their current investment when they deploy SaaS Accelerator, for a comprehensive solution that extends from the end user device through the network to the SaaS application. And for organizations with a security posture that requires all SaaS traffic be backhauled through a corporate data center, the introduction of Riverbed SaaS Accelerator enables those companies to maintain that approach while eliminating the latency challenges that can often hinder productivity for mobile and remote employees.

“As organizations worldwide address the imperative of digital transformation, they recognize the criticality of measuring experience and infrastructure modernization. Perhaps nowhere is that modernization more necessary than in network infrastructure, which provides the essential conduit for application delivery and enhanced digital experiences,” said Brad Casemore, IDC Research VP, Datacenter Networking. “IDC research finds that enterprises worldwide are increasingly concerned with how well their network infrastructure supports the performance and security of SaaS and IaaS applications in a multi-cloud context, and Riverbed’s latest product introductions – including SaaS Accelerator, and enhancements to its SD-WAN and Digital Experience Management offerings – are squarely aimed at addressing those challenges.”

“Companies today are in varying stages of digital transformation, even within their own businesses. Riverbed’s new release is targeted to address specific challenges organizations are facing in their digital journeys and in assuring cloud and SaaS performance,” said Dante Malagrino, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Cloud Infrastructure Business Unit. “Riverbed’s ability to measure and monitor app performance and user experience, and proactively accelerate SaaS and cloud-based applications to anyone, anywhere, regardless of location, is unique in the industry.”

New SD-WAN Enhancements

Riverbed also announced enhancements to its SD-WAN solutions (SteelConnect and SteelHead SD), which provide unified orchestration and connectivity across the entire distributed enterprise network with embedded security, optimization and visibility​. This release boosts agility, security and operation efficiency with advances in multi-cloud network automation, enhanced service-chaining for on-premises and cloud-based security services, and increased flexibility to deploy and manage SD-WAN in more complex global environments. This SD-WAN release also includes additional integration with Zscaler that delivers one-click integration to Zscaler’s security platform for thousands of branch locations.

Advancements in Digital Experience Management (DEM) Solution

Riverbed also announced advancements to its DEM offering to measure and manage the digital experience of end users. This includes the introduction of an automated remediation feature that helps support organizations proactively address and resolve common user device issues before they impact user experience or are escalated to support. The result is better user satisfaction, lower IT costs and improved stability.