Riverbed retools management console for MSPs

Managed WAN optimization services can offer a relatively affordable entry point for companies that want to speed application access across the WAN but aren’t prepared to purchase and deploy hardware on their own.

Companies such as AT&T, BT Global Services, Sprint and Verizon offer managed WAN services with options for boosting application performance over their networks. Typically, the provider handles the procurement, installation and management of hardware at a customer’s sites, configuring the gear to address unresponsive applications, slow transmissions and network congestion.

As more providers add WAN optimization to their managed service portfolios, it makes sense for equipment makers to tailor their WAN optimization gear to the needs of those carriers. The latest to do so is Riverbed Technology, which this week announced a new management console geared for managed service providers.

Riverbed’s Central Management Console - Virtual Edition (CMC-VE) is designed for multi-tenant environments, so MSPs can manage multiple sets of Steelhead appliance deployments, each dedicated to a discrete customer. As a result, MSPs can scale central management capabilities for their customers as they grow and bring on new customers without purchasing and deploying new hardware, Riverbed says:

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Managed WAN optimization services can offer a relatively affordable entry point for companies that want to speed application access across the WAN but aren’t prepared to purchase and deploy hardware on their own.

Companies such as AT&T, BT Global Services, Sprint and Verizon offer managed WAN services with options for boosting application performance over their networks. Typically, the provider handles the procurement, installation and management of hardware at a customer’s sites, configuring the gear to address unresponsive applications, slow transmissions and network congestion.

As more providers add WAN optimization to their managed service portfolios, it makes sense for equipment makers to tailor their WAN optimization gear to the needs of those carriers. The latest to do so is Riverbed Technology, which this week announced a new management console geared for managed service providers.

Riverbed’s Central Management Console - Virtual Edition (CMC-VE) is designed for multi-tenant environments, so MSPs can manage multiple sets of Steelhead appliance deployments, each dedicated to a discrete customer. As a result, MSPs can scale central management capabilities for their customers as they grow and bring on new customers without purchasing and deploying new hardware, Riverbed says:

“… MSPs can manage thousands of Steelhead appliances across multiple customer sites – all from one physical server in their data center. In addition, CMC-VE can be deployed almost instantly when an MSP brings on a new customer – without having to deploy additional hardware,” said Alan Saldich, vice president of product marketing at Riverbed.

CMC-VE is a virtualized version of Riverbed’s existing CMC appliance, a management device designed to help enterprises streamline the configuration and management of their Steelhead WAN optimization appliances. CMC-VE runs on VMWare ESX, and MSPs can run it on any existing server that has capacity, Riverbed says.

On the licensing front, CMC-VE lets MSPs purchase management licenses for Steelhead appliances as needed, and move existing license keys across CMC-VE instances as customers’ needs change, for example.

In terms of scalability, Riverbed found in its internal tests that one reasonably-sized server was able to run up to 50 CMC-VE instances, each of which was managing 50 Steelhead appliances. In another scenario, the same server hosted six CMC-VE instances, each managing 500 Steelhead appliances, Riverbed says.

“We're using CMC to manage our customers' Steelhead appliance deployments in the easiest, most-efficient way possible,” said Jamey Hancock, director of channel strategies for managed IT service provider IPsoft, in a statement. “CMC-VE's capabilities allow us to improve visibility across customers’ networks and provide valuable performance information, with greater flexibility and lower TCO for us and for them.”

CMC-VE is expected to be generally available in October.

Read more about infrastructure management in Network World's Infrastructure Management section.