Riverbed Supercharges Networking With RiOS 10 and AI-Ready SteelHead Solutions
REDWOOD CITY, CALIF., 13TH MAY, 2025 – Riverbed has unveiled its most significant acceleration release in seven years, introducing ten next-gen SteelHead appliances powered by the all-new RiOS 10 platform, alongside a flexible subscription model to meet the demands of the AI era.
These updates will allow companies to speed up data and application performance across cloud, edge, and data center environments at optimum cost, agility, and environment.
“Riverbed was founded 23 years ago this month with a focus on accelerating applications and the movement of data over networks. AI and data-hungry applications have introduced new and more demanding network requirements,”
Said Dave Donatelli, CEO of Riverbed.
“I’m proud that Riverbed continues to solve our customers’ most critical challenges, as demonstrated today by our largest Acceleration launch in seven years. In the first quarter of this year, we saw strong demand in our Acceleration business, achieving 59% year-over-year bookings growth. These new solutions build on our momentum and deliver a proven return on investment by helping customers move data faster, optimize application performance, and strengthen business resilience.”
With a 35% yearly increase in global data volumes and AI changing how enterprise applications work, the new SteelHead series by Riverbed brings the network down at every level blocking performance.
The flagship SteelHead 8090 can offer up to 60 Gbps of WAN-optimized throughput, while the 6090, 4090, and 2090 series are sized from mid-level data centers to edge deployments. Post-quantum cryptography and confidential computing, along with platform security, now come standard.
“Network congestion is no longer just a nuisance—it’s a choke point that can cripple a business. Without fast and efficient data movement over networks, enterprises will quickly find themselves falling behind, missing out on the promise of AI,”
Said Chalan Aras, SVP and GM of Acceleration at Riverbed.
“Riverbed’s new resilient networking solutions help organizations stay ahead of the curve by securely managing growing data volumes and application performance demands, while also improving IT agility to support the dynamic demands of cloud, data center and edge computing.”
Riverbed is also attempting to grow its software portfolio. SteelHead Virtual offers hardware-level acceleration to VMware, KVM, and Hyper-V private cloud environments.
The other new SteelHead RS allows real-time data synchronization between the edge and core, enhancing local AI processing with a globally consistent data state. The upgraded SteelHead Cloud now accelerates AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle Cloud up to 20 Gbps in a cloud-native manner.
Riverbed Flex, an innovative subscription model that supports complete license portability on hardware, virtual, and cloud environments, has also been launched to complement this technology journey.
“Riverbed Flex allows us to continue to manage our network performance in a smarter, more agile way – exactly what we need in the fast-moving world of offshore operations,”
Says Dr. Alexei Vederko, Senior Director of Engineering from Viasat Energy Services.
“With rigs constantly relocating, IT must scale, move, and optimize network acceleration on demand. The Flex model allows us to replace and upgrade hardware: minimizing risk when equipment is lost or outdated. As a long-time SteelHead customer, our work with Riverbed allows us to effectively deliver critical data to our oil platforms and ensure operational resiliency. Riverbed Flex is a further step forward in future proofing our network with greater flexibility and control.”
Customers can dynamically scale capacity, reassign licenses, and upgrade systems without extra fees, preserving value and reducing total cost of ownership.
“AI initiatives are increasing the criticality of network performance, requiring reduced latency, increased bandwidth, and richer network observability. While performance can be improved by upgrading network gear and external services, organizations should also prioritize continuous optimization of network connections. These are all requirements that Riverbed’s resilient networking solutions address for successfully supporting growing AI workloads,”
Said Jim Frey, Principal Analyst, Networks, Enterprise Strategy Group.
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