Riverbed plans this week to release two new WAN optimization boxes for offices with fewer than 20 people.

Called Steelhead 100 and 200, one of the devices talks to another at the other end of a WAN link to boost throughput. The models consist of the same hardware, but the 100 is limited via software to support five users.

The smaller devices are attractive to BJG, an engineering and architectural firm that uses larger Steelhead devices to boost applications performance between offices in Reno, Nev., and Las Vegas, says Ron Maxwell, the firm's IT manager.

Increasingly, the architects and engineers are working from home, where performance over residential broadband links is slow, Maxwell says. Some of the users download files to laptops to work on at home, but that runs the risk that others will work on the same files and they will run into version problems.

Maxwell says he might install some Steelhead 100 devices at the homes of employees who often work there and keep more at company offices for others to take home only when they need them.

The loaner scenario may be helped by a new feature of the Steelhead management platform in which each device pulls down configuration settings automatically when it is installed. Users previously had to walk through a setup wizard.

Other vendors, including Orbital Data, Packeteer and F5 Networks, also offer WAN optimization devices for branch offices. Rob Whiteley, an analyst with Forrester Research, predicts more vendors of these devices will deliver smaller versions later this year.

Companies with many small branches, such as retail chains, would find these devices useful, Whiteley says. For example, stores trying to access credit card data from checkout lines could reduce customer wait time by installing them, he says.

Riverbed also is upgrading its central management console (CMC) software to include flexible management of groups of machines, to generate performance reports and to centrally assess the health of Steelheads in a network. CMC also supports a new management information base that works with other network management systems.

The Steelhead 100 costs $3,500 and the 200 costs $5,000. Pricing for the CMC management platform starts at $5,000.

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