Riverbed Technology , the IT performance company, has announced the release of Virtual Steelhead, a virtual version of its Riverbed Steelhead wide area network (WAN) optimization appliance. Virtual Steelhead enables customers to deploy Riverbed WAN optimization solutions in a wider range of environments that may have specialized requirements, such as ruggedized environments or environments with space limitations, as well as data centers that have been heavily virtualized.

The Riverbed Steelhead product family offers organizations of all sizes acceleration of applications and data regardless of location. With the introduction of the Virtual Steelhead, built for the VMware vSphere Platform, organizations will have the flexibility to provide anywhere access for employees from a comprehensive set of solutions that meets the needs of customers in any environment.

“Our server infrastructure is 80% virtualized today. The option to extend virtualization to a WAN optimization solution based on Riverbed’s best-of-breed Steelhead appliance will enable our continued effort to reduce our IT hardware footprint. Virtual Steelhead is built on a proven WAN optimization solution.  Virtualization is an innovative way to handle consolidation, cost-control measures, and even green initiatives,” said Searl Tate, director of engineering at Paul Hastings, a global law firm.

“As organizations continue to migrate toward consolidated and virtualized data centers, enterprises are turning to WAN optimization to maximize IT performance and keep end users connected to their data and applications. With the launch of Virtual Steelhead, Riverbed is providing customers with a new option that extends the reach and flexibility of its WAN optimization to new environments that often have specialized physical requirements,” said Zeus Kerravala, distinguished research fellow, Yankee Group. “The Virtual Steelhead enables organizations to overcome performance challenges in a variety of environments, including military zones, emergency scenarios with first responders and transient worksites.”

“The Virtual Steelhead appliance will allow us to deploy WAN optimization to remote locations with satellite links as the only means of data communication,” said Jon Rudol, senior systems engineer of FHI, a global health and development organization. “We see great optimization benefits with the Steelhead appliances today, and believe the Virtual Steelhead will only further our gains, by allowing us to reduce our hardware footprint, especially since most of our field offices are severely space-constrained and subjected to harsh environmental conditions.”

"Our customers will benefit from Riverbed’s Virtual Steelhead built to run on the VMware vSphere™ platform to provide optimum performance in virtualized environments," said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances at VMware. "The new solution is designed to enable customers to extend the effectiveness of virtualized data centers and an assortment of unique environments without compromising performance or productivity regardless of location.”

Virtual Steelhead is expected to be generally available in Q3 2010.