Steelhead Reviews

Aside from optimizing WAN connections between our remote offices and the home office, the charts/real-time graphs proved to be valuable during troubleshooting over-utilization issues. Easily, we were able to determine source/destination and how much data they have used.

We've increased throughput between remote offices, increasing our efficiency.

It provides easy-to-read data to review troubles within the network which allowed us to resolve the issue much quicker.

Personally, my expertise with this device I feel is too low to determine what areas could be improved. I did use this device for 3+ years while with another job and administered the web interface and even jumped into the CLI with support at times. However, I have no professional training.

3+ years

No issues with deployment of this hardware. Although I believe it may not be recommended the device is essentially plug-n-play, meaning the database will determine what networks to optimize without you having to specify every subnet.

At times, like all network devices there were issues, but support was there to help us understand/resolve any issues that we could not handle. Even if it meant RMA, we would receive a new Steelhead the next day and be able to replace it.

I did not deal much with scaling as the network didn't grow while I was there, but we did have the Riverbed CMC (I believe is the acronym - central management console?) Having this would have made scaling easy, I assume.

Customer Service:

Customer service was what I would expect out of every company. They took care of us when we needed them to, including replacing the device with minimal questions.

Technical Support:

Tech support was great as well, they were able to remote into my computer and then use the putty session from there to gather information needed or resolve the issue.

I am not aware of the company using any other solution. When I joined they were already using Riverbed Steelhead.

I was not there for the initial setup, but I did replace one remote office steelhead and that was easy to do

I implemented through a in-house one, no rating to give to a vendor team. We handled everything if it was over our heads we had their tech support.

I would not know this information as I was only dealing with the administration of the device. These devices were extremely valuable as when one went down or optimization turned off, everyone noticed.

I would not have valuable / correct information on pricing or licensing as I did not handle that portion. I'm sure like anything, if you want all the bells and whistles expect to pay some $$.

No other options were evaluated, to my knowledge. I am not even aware of other WAN optimizers. I'm sure there are some, when the time comes I'm sure I'll do some research.

No additional comments or advice regarding Riverbed Steelhead. The devices were great, and proved to be a very valuable asset to the company.

We did a data center migration for one client between two countries in Latin America. The challenge for this company was that they needed to send a large amount of traffic from Argentina to Mexico in a very short time. Without Riverbed WAN Optimization, it took one hour to send one gig of traffic, but with Riverbed, one gig of traffic was sent in five minutes. From one hour to five minutes, it had a big impact.

A feature we like is data streamlining. Riverbed does packet deduplication, packet compression and uses something like simple data referencing to compress the data. If one gig of traffic is sent to one link, that gig of traffic coming from the packet is only 100 mbps, so the compression of Riverbed is very powerful.

Another is transport streamlining, which includes TCP optimization. The window size of the TCP protocol is achieved in order to transfer more data in the TCP section despite the endpoint. The endpoint transfer was very slow, but it doesn't matter because with Riverbed in the middle, it can handle more quantities of traffic.

For application streamlining, where the HTTP application previously had a lot of traffic, Riverbed recognizes HTTP protocols and it can optimize the process because it can create the HTTP server. Normally, the browser and web server agree and compress the traffic, but if Riverbed is in between, it strips the compression from the browser and Riverbed does its own compressions, which is more powerful, and hence, the application runs faster for the user.

Also, for HTTP, Riverbed does caching so it can store data from all the user traffic. It keeps track of the HTTP data locally. Traveling into the server isn't necessary. They can retrieve the information locally because there is a local Riverbed.

It's for a very specific use case. It's not for everything. Although the solution is very powerful, it doesn't apply to all enterprises.

There is only one feature that needs to be improved. In the case of a High Availability event, if we lose the primary Steelhead, all the connections need to be restarted. If we lose the primary Steelhead that handles the optimization, the secondary Steelhead cannot handle the same High Availability. Some applications will restart automatically, but for some other applications, like STP, the users need to start a new session. If we load a primary firewall, the secondary firewall usually handles all the active connections, but in Riverbed, this isn't the case. We lose all the active connections at the moment of failure.

I have been using Steelhead for five years. 

I would rate Steelhead a nine out of ten because the product is very stable; it never fails. It does compression and application optimization very well. 

Riverbed can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud as well. We can deploy it in Amazon, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The solution is in the marketplace of every car provider and it also optimizes Office 365 traffic, since there's a partnership with Riverbed and Microsoft. We can deploy on-premise, we can deploy on IaaS or we can deploy on PaaS.

In the past, the internet links of the MPLS link were full capacity (one or two Mbps) and it was very expensive. Nowadays, the prices of the MPLS links are cheaper and the capacity is increased.

On-premises

• Easy deployment
• Fantastic bandwidth optimization
• Low maintenance requirements

It's improved the stability and throughput of the WAN, especially for remote small branches with low link speed. Reduced impact to network performance from Windows updates deployment on users PCs.

Better logic of the web GUI.

I've been using it for three years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

We had some stability problems with a few devices. Probably RAM leaking issue by some processes which caused problem with remote access to the devices trough SSH or web.

We have had no issues scaling it for our needs.

I haven't had much experience with Riverbed Technical Support since our devices are managed by outsourcing company.

We previously used Cisco WAAS solution.

The deployment of the Riverbed products is very easy and straightforward.

I implemented it myself. The advice is just to follow the vendor instructions.

Check your network requirements before deploying one of the Riverbed devices. CX255M is more than enough for most of the branch sites with 10-50 people.

I've found the appliance to be the most valuable. Also, it's easy to use and configure.

It's helped to reduce WAN traffic by approximately 60%.

I would like to see more IP services, perhaps aligned better Netflow stats. The Central Management Console (CMC) newly named SteelCentral Controller (SCC) has rudimentary netflow capabilities, but it doesn’t have particularly in-depth data. I realize the need for a dedicated NetFlow environment but because the SteelHead technology deal with flow and not IP this is not capable.

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

The SteelHead product is very good, easy to configure, however a home page which can be altered would enhance the gui 

Management purchased the product initially for its ability to reduce WAN traffic, especially to overseas partners. However, lately it has also become a valuable traffic shaping tool via it's ability to set QoS marking on traffic we specify.

It has allowed us to purchase lower bandwidth from our WAN vendors than we normally would have without the Steelhead units.

Setting up QoS marking is not all that intuitive. I would like to see all settings needed to set QoS up on one page rather than three or four.

We've used it for approximately five years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

Some types of data flows between servers don't always lend themselves to being optimized by the Steelhead unit. These data flows must have bypass rules set up in order to properly pass traffic.

We have had no issues with the scalability.

Riverbed has excellent technical support. Even on non-critical cases I have always gotten a support engineer. Most support staff are very understandable.

The initial setup is very straightforward. Give the unit an IP address for management, an IP address for your WAN segment and place it inline between your local network and your WAN. Steelhead will automatically find peers and set up peering.

We implemented it via in-house team. My advice is to try setup yourself and if you need assistance, call the support line. They will get you up and running.

I am not involved in the purchasing or licensing.

This was our first WAN optimization solution. This product was selected by upper management. I did not have a role in the selection process.

Although I'm sure this is obvious to most it may not be to some when you make your initial purchase you need to buy at least two. The SteelCentral Controller is not strictly needed as all the units can be managed individually, but the more units you deploy, it becomes more difficult to maintain a standard configuration across devices. This is where the SCC comes in very handy.

The data compression through the WAN. It is like being on a LAN. It is even more effective when the technology uses an adaptive transfer scheme known as "warm transfer".

Critical data such as emails and Sharepoint files being able to move faster across the WAN via Riverbed Steelhead's compress/decompress mechanism.

Need to handle more traffic simultaneously.

2 years

No, everything is plug and play with minor configuration involved.

Not at all

Not at all

Customer Service: 5 out of 5Technical Support: 5 out of 5

I used Cisco WAAS technology before. The Riverbed Steelhead is much easier to configure and works faster on packet delivery.

Setup was very straightforward.

Less bandwidth usage

Please do some diligent research before purchasing the product. It is quite expensive but it is worth it in the long run.

First of all we are great fan of Riverbed WAN optimization feature which I would say is the most valuable for us as we have couple of low bandwidth scenarios. Apart from this we are using specific Office 365 optimization since we are using Exchange online. We also use EX functionality of the box where we host our VM servers.

Many of our offshore installation are on low bandwidth but this has really helped to optimize the network which basically means we are able to achieve faster data connection or link.

There are issues with the tech support and scalability.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

We have had no issues with the stability.

The device mostly comes with a standard configuration with no options to upgrade the hardware. This means that we need to go ahead with a new or high end model in case the infra changes happen.

Riverbed needs to really work on local support when it comes to technical knowledge transfer. They need to have teams who can give proper knowledge transfer to customers so that they can use the device in best ways

Riverbed is great product and base functionality of these devices which is WAN optimization is handled by them in best and intelligent way.

The WAN optimization feature is the most valuable.

It helps to save a lot of money in terms of buying bandwidth from a network provider due to the fact that it compresses more than 50% of the daily throughput.

The RIOS upgrade/download process must be overhauled to be a direct step process instead of the multiple stage procedure that currently take place.

There are lots of bugs detected in each release which give the assumption that it is not being thoroughly tested.

I've been supporting it for seven years.

We had no issues with the deployment but there are bugs in each release.

We have no issues with the stability.

We have had no issues with scaling it for our needs.

Technical support is very good in the WAN optimization department, needs a little more expertize in the steelcentral department.

I used Cisco WAAS, Juniper WX, and Ipanema. Riverbed are way ahead overall.

It was straightforward.

I work for a network provider so we are the people who do the implementation. I find that the implementation is very easy in this solution.

This product is far way ahead from its competitors.