You Can Have Your Cake and Eat it Too!

Submitted by Adam Reeves, NetScout Product Marketing Manager

Recently we co-hosted a webinar with our partner Riverbed. The topic was how Riverbed and NetScout work together so that our joint customers can not only take advantage of Riverbed’s WAN optimization and application acceleration, but do so without loss of visibility into network and application performance analysis.

We see customer value across several use cases of the joint solution including identifying which WAN segments, applications, and user groups require acceleration and optimization; quantifying improvements brought about by Riverbed’s Steelhead appliances via comparison between pre- and post-optimization performance; troubleshooting optimized portions of user networks; troubleshooting the Riverbed implementation itself; and providing users with uninterrupted, end-to-end visibility into network and application performance.

We presented the attendees with multiple reasons for being interested in a joint NetScout/Riverbed solution and asked which is the most important to them.  The most respondents (32.7%) claimed to be interested in the joint solution for the promise of end-to-end visibility. The second most popular (29.3%) response was to gain a better understanding of where optimization/acceleration would be beneficial. Coming in third (22%) was troubleshooting optimized/accelerated links, and fourth (15.9%) was helping to compare pre- and post-optimization performance.

Respondents to the poll questions are telling both Riverbed and NetScout that they not only want to optimize their WANs and accelerate their applications, but they want to do it without interrupting their end-to-end visibility. They want the best of both worlds and that’s why Riverbed and NetScout entered into this relationship.

As a result of this relationship, NetScout will be able to provide Riverbed customers with integrated visibility into optimized links and accelerated applications. This integrated functionality will be provided to joint customers via NetScout’s nGenius® Performance Management solution at no charge to in-support customers via probe firmware upgrade.

More information on the relationship and a description of the functionality can be found by reviewing the webinar available on-demand here, the press release, and the NetScout website.

Have you had to choose between visibility and optimization or acceleration? How did you decide? Are you a customer of both Riverbed and NetScout or just considering the joint solution? What aspect of the combined solution is most interesting to you? Let us know in the comments.