Cisco WAAS

Would Cisco buy Riverbed?

Cisco Subnet — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:17:04 -0500

Cisco to make a takeover bid for Riverbed? Could that ever happen? Cisco Subnet blogger Larry Chaffin believes so. In his latest blog post, Larry also predicts that Nortel could be bought by either Juniper, AT&T or Qwest. Larry writes: "Riverbed is looking more and more like a takeover target, they have good numbers even in this down economy and the stock is down just because of the markets.

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Cisco recently held a conference call where they provided a state of the WAN optimization market

Larry Chaffin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:18:24 -0400

George Kurian, VP of Cisco's application delivery division, recently held a conference call where he provided a state of the WAN optimization market along with an overview of Cisco's WAAS 4.1 release. Riverbed's Bob Gilbert had some interesting comment in his blog below.

http://blogs.riverbed.com/thinkfast/2008/10/cisco-vp-lets-u.html#more

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Microsoft, Cisco deliver Windows Server on WAAS for branch offices

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:05:27 -0400

Microsoft and Cisco today delivered the fruit of their union originally announced in February - Windows Server on WAAS is now available to order, according to a post on the Windows Server Division Weblog. "This appliance brings together Cisco’s Wide Area Application Services with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 to create a Branch Office Box, meant to help simplify branch office IT," writes blogger Ibrahim Hamza. Cisco has released a "social media release" on the news, citing customer and partner quotes, as well as linking to a video of Cisco and Microsoft execs discussing the new product. I wonder if Gartner has something more positive to say about this version of WAAS.

Interesting read:

* Gartner tells us all what we already knew about the Cisco WAAS, software quality and stability issues

* Top 5 Branches Office Design Tips

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Gartner advises Cisco WAAS customers to proceed with caution

Cisco Subnet — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 22:36:03 -0400

Gartner has called into question the quality and stability of Cisco's WAN acceleration product Cisco Wide Area Application Services, saying that client feedback suggests to proceed with caution, according to a paper dated Sept. 17. As discussed by Cisco Subnet blogger Larry Chaffin, Gartner published the paper after receiving feedback from WAAS customers. Chaffin writes: "Gartner said problems with software quality and stability issues should make customers wary and that the product is still immature when compared with its competitors, and successful deployments can be difficult to predict. They reported that customer are having issues with the Cisco WAAS and that is does not meet the Cisco standards and it has taken some accounts six months or more to resolve significant bugs." Cisco issued a rebuttal, but Chaffin questions the validity of some of Cisco's comments. Read more at Chaffin's blog.

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Gartner tells us all what we already knew about the Cisco WAAS, software quality and stability issues should make customers wary

Larry Chaffin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:33:23 -0400

Gartner tells us all what we already knew about the Cisco WAAS, it is immature.

A recent post on my blog asking me for comments on the latest Gartner Publication about the Cisco WAAS, prompted this posting. The title of the Gartner article was Cisco WAAS Update: Client Feedback Suggests to Proceed With Caution and the date was September 17, 2008. A summary of the article says a few things that we most of us who see past the Cisco Marketing spin knew already, the WAAS has issues. Please remember before all of the bashers jump on the blogger, this is from Gartner and customers not me. I have my own comments at the bottom.

Gartner put this paper together after getting feedback from Cisco WWAS customers, so this is not a competitive company saying these items below. Gartner said problems with software quality and stability issues should make customers wary and that the product is still immature when compared with its competitors, and successful deployments can be difficult to predict. They reported that customer are having issues with the Cisco WAAS and that is does not meet the Cisco standards and it has taken some accounts six months or more to resolve significant bugs.

Gartner said they have spoken with many customers both large and small that continue to have serious problems with the software of the WAAS. They went on to say that this poses a serious question with regards to the quality and reliability of the software. They said technical issues that customer have reported such as the product stability is an issue, some large scale customer work well but other even smaller ones don't work well. Even with new releases of the software the problems have got worse.

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Microsoft, Cisco collaboration tie-up 12 months on: Still just PR fluff?

Cisco Subnet — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:13:06 -0400

It's been a year since Cisco and Microsoft CEOs Steve Ballmer and John Chambers took to the stage to indulge in some collaborative lovefest, which some observers dismissed as just PR fluff. Just a day later, the event was overshadowed by Microsoft publishing a white paper detailing how its product is more superior to Cisco's equivalent. Fast foward 12 months and Cisco and Microsoft are set to do battle in the e-mail space through Cisco's recent acquisition of Exchange rival PostPath.

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The "American Idol" of WAN Acceleration

Sevcik and Wetzel — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:51:55 -0400

Results of our WAN acceleration product feedback are in, and here is a quick summary of what we heard. For starters, if this were the application delivery system version of American Idol, Riverbed’s Steelhead would win.

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Last Chance to Weigh in about Your Acceleration Vendor

Sevcik and Wetzel — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:07:02 -0400

We’ve received a lively response from many of you about experiences with your WAN acceleration vendors, and starting next week we will summarize what we heard. Before we tally up the responses though, folks have one last chance to weigh in. As reflected in the comment count below, thus far we’ve seen enormous variation in the relative participation and passion of different vendor’s customers. Let us know what you think, passionate or not. Although we don’t yet want to draw conclusions, feeble response may indicate lack of customer enthusiasm.

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What's the deal with Cisco's software development program?

Cisco Subnet — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:15:02 -0400

Cisco India wrapped up its first Cisco Developer Forum Friday, an event that was "focused on the network as a development platform," according to Cisco India. The two-day conference included technical sessions and hands-on demonstrations covering applications in unified communications, customer contact center, voice gateway, data center, network management and wireless technologies.

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Microsoft & Cisco, sitting in a tree....

John.Obeto — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:46:43 -0500

When Microsoft and Cisco announced an agreement last year to co-ompete, people wondered if it was real or fluff.

I lauded the agreement as two giants letting their constituencies know what the planks in their relative platforms were. (Hey, it's the election season.)

Last week, the first fruits of the new arrangement was announced: the embedding of Windows Server 2008 into a line of WAAS appliances manufactured by Cisco.

Just how cool is this?

For branch offices, this is a boon, and a product that you should add to your testing and validation plans for the coming year.

I fully expect the delivered product to to be a winner, from both an integration and a revenue-generating standpoint. After all, it is a product of Microsoft and Cisco.

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Cisco to resell Windows Server 2008: Did you think it could ever happen?

Cisco Subnet — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:35:59 -0500

As a Cisco networking professional you probably thought you'd never see this happen but Cisco is to become a reseller of Microsoft's Windows Server 2008. Yup, Cisco is going to bundle Microsoft's upcoming OS with its WAN optimization gear for branch offices.

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Cisco loses to Riverbed in WAN optimization bake-off

Cisco Subnet — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:30:47 -0500

Being a self-confessed "Cisco fan" wasn't enough to convince Adam Rasner, director of corporate network services at Rayonier, to give Cisco the prize of consolidating locations at the forestry and real estate company. Instead, that contract went to Riverbed Technologies and its Steelhead WAFS appliance (compare products), according to a story in SearchStorage.com.

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