Riverbed joins Microsoft Azure Certified programme

Riverbed Technology, which provides application performance infrastructure, is one of the first partners to join the new Microsoft Azure Certified programme. Riverbed will also offer a Microsoft Azure-certified version of Riverbed SteelHead CX for infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds that can be deployed as an Azure virtual machine and managed by the Azure Management Portal. 

The combination of Riverbed SteelHead and Microsoft Azure allows customers to optimize and accelerate the delivery of applications from Azure to business locations up to 33X faster, while using up to 97% less bandwidth.

“With the cloud gaining traction across a multitude of business functions, organisations need to run their applications in a hybrid environment and are turning to services like Azure,” said Paul O’Farrell, Senior Vice President and General Manager, SteelHead Products Group at Riverbed. 

“Regardless of where an application is hosted, it needs to perform to the satisfaction of the end-user. SteelHead’s optimisation and acceleration capabilities help deliver that ideal end-user experience, while enabling cost saving and higher productivity."

The Microsoft Azure Certified programme makes it easy to find and deploy Azure-integrated solutions such as SteelHead. The first phase of this program is Microsoft Azure Certified for virtual machines and provides an on-ramp for Microsoft partners to take their applications to the cloud and integrate with the existing Azure customer base.

“Microsoft Azure is an end-to-end cloud platform for business and we’re excited to create an ecosystem for partners to expand their exposure to companies around the world who are taking advantage of the cloud transformation,” said Garth Fort, General Manager, Cloud and Enterprise Partner Marketing, Microsoft. “Eliminating the barriers between cloud development and operational management is critical. Riverbed is one of the first strategic partners to provide the cloud application performance infrastructure that improves the end user’s experience.”

Riverbed SteelHead, part of the Riverbed Application Performance Platform, is a WAN optimisation solution that helps IT ensure optimal service levels for applications among data centres, branch locations, cloud networks, and end users.