Riverbed SteelHead Cloud
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What is Riverbed SteelHead Cloud
Riverbed SteelHead Cloud is a WAN optimization and application acceleration product delivered as a virtual appliance for public cloud and virtualized environments. It is used by IT and network teams to improve application performance and reduce bandwidth consumption for traffic between cloud workloads, data centers, and branch/remote users. The product focuses on optimization techniques such as data reduction, transport optimization, and visibility into application flows, rather than providing compute, storage, or networking as an IaaS platform. It is typically deployed alongside existing cloud infrastructure to optimize connectivity and user experience for enterprise applications.
Cloud-deployable optimization appliance
SteelHead Cloud is designed to run as a virtual appliance in common cloud and virtualization environments, enabling consistent optimization policies beyond physical branch appliances. This supports hybrid architectures where applications and data move between data centers and public cloud. It can be positioned close to cloud workloads to reduce latency effects and improve throughput for supported traffic patterns.
Bandwidth reduction capabilities
The product uses WAN optimization methods (for example, data reduction and protocol/transport optimization) to lower the amount of data sent over constrained links. This can help organizations manage network costs and improve performance for repetitive or chatty application traffic. It is most relevant where traffic patterns benefit from optimization rather than simple scaling of bandwidth.
Enterprise network visibility integration
SteelHead Cloud fits into Riverbed’s broader network performance and monitoring ecosystem, which can help teams correlate application performance with network conditions. This is useful for troubleshooting hybrid connectivity issues that span cloud and on-premises segments. Centralized management and reporting can reduce operational overhead compared with managing isolated point tools.
Not an IaaS platform
Despite the category label provided, SteelHead Cloud does not function as an IaaS provider and does not supply core cloud primitives like compute instances, object storage, or managed networking. Organizations still need to procure and operate their underlying cloud infrastructure separately. This can create confusion during evaluation if the goal is to select an IaaS vendor rather than an optimization layer.
Optimization depends on traffic fit
Benefits vary by application protocol, encryption posture, and traffic repetitiveness; some modern SaaS and end-to-end encrypted traffic may offer limited optimization opportunities. In these cases, performance gains may rely more on network design changes than on acceleration. Teams often need testing to validate measurable improvements for priority applications.
Added deployment and licensing complexity
Running virtual appliances in cloud environments introduces additional components to deploy, monitor, and patch, which can increase operational complexity. Costs can include software licensing plus the cloud resources required to run the appliances. Organizations may also need to plan for high availability and scaling patterns to avoid creating new bottlenecks.
Plan & Pricing
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| CCX-SUB-PERF-TIER1 (10 Mbps) | Contact Riverbed (price not listed on official site) | Optimized WAN capacity: 10 Mbps; Maximum connections: 1,250. SKU shown on Riverbed datasheet. |
| CCX-SUB-PERF-TIER2 (50 Mbps) | Contact Riverbed (price not listed on official site) | Optimized WAN capacity: 50 Mbps; Maximum connections: 4,500. |
| CCX-SUB-PERF-TIER3 (200 Mbps) | Contact Riverbed (price not listed on official site) | Optimized WAN capacity: 200 Mbps; Maximum connections: 9,000. |
| CCX-SUB-PERF-TIER4 (500 Mbps) | Contact Riverbed (price not listed on official site) | Optimized WAN capacity: 500 Mbps; Maximum connections: 1,000. |
| CCX-SUB-PERF-TIER4-H (500 Mbps - High connections) | Contact Riverbed (price not listed on official site) | Optimized WAN capacity: 500 Mbps; Maximum connections: 30,000. |
| CCX-SUB-PERF-TIER5 (1 Gbps) | Contact Riverbed (price not listed on official site) | Optimized WAN capacity: 1 Gbps; Maximum connections: 1,000. |
| CCX-SUB-PERF-TIER5-H (1 Gbps - High connections) | Contact Riverbed (price not listed on official site) | Optimized WAN capacity: 1 Gbps; Maximum connections: 50,000. |
Seller details
Riverbed Technology, LLC
San Francisco, CA, USA
2002
Private
https://www.riverbed.com/
https://x.com/riverbed
https://www.linkedin.com/company/riverbed-technology/
