SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 24, 2011) - [ Riverbed Technology ] (NASDAQ: [ RVBD ]), the IT performance company, today announced that it received a 2011 Tech Innovator award from CRN in the Networking-Enterprise category. CRN's 9th annual Tech Innovator awards celebrate vendors that have introduced new products or solutions to drive advances in the technology channel. Companies on this exclusive list recently started offering innovative technologies that bridge the gap between current problems facing channel executives today, and the solutions to these problems. Riverbed® received the award for its [ Cascade® Shark ] packet capture and analysis product.

Cascade Shark saves organizations time and money by helping IT staff quickly troubleshoot network and application problems. It enhances productivity by eliminating IT staff wait times experienced when troubleshooting for recurring problems, and it minimizes the effect downtime has on business productivity.

As an integral component of the Cascade application-aware network performance management (NPM) solution, Cascade Shark delivers scalable, high-performance continuous packet capture. This enables real-time data flow monitoring and packet-based troubleshooting with back-in-time forensic analysis. In addition, Cascade Shark is built on Wireshark, the world's most popular open-source network protocol analyzer.

"Our channel partners are often the frontline for helping customers solve complex and tough problems by using Cascade Shark -- to monitor, report and analyze network and application performance -- as a fundamental starting point for creating strategies and recommendations for customers to exceed in their IT initiatives," said Randy Schirman, senior vice president of worldwide channels at Riverbed. "Channel partners using Cascade Shark have been introduced into new accounts in the financial, large enterprise and federal government markets because of the customer need to immediately remedy network emergencies, as well as provide long-term, proactive network monitoring and troubleshooting."

More than 13,000 organizations worldwide depend on Riverbed to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT infrastructure, through solutions that overcome performance issues caused by distance, distributed computing, and ever increasing amounts of data. As IT organizations embark on the strategic initiatives of virtualizing, consolidating and moving workloads into cloud environments, users are moved farther from their data, and slow applications, file transfers and inefficient websites must be proactively addressed. Riverbed makes these strategic initiatives possible and transforms IT performance by providing solutions spanning WAN optimization, application-aware network performance management (NPM), application delivery, web content optimization (WCO), and cloud data protection for backup, archive and disaster recovery. By providing the broadest portfolio of performance solutions that deliver "anywhere, any application" optimization, Riverbed enables organizations to increase productivity and efficiency, while enhancing business resilience and controlling costs.

"In today's challenging business environment, it's more important than ever to discover, nurture and reward new ideas," said Kelley Damore, vice president, editorial director for UBM Channel. "This year's Tech Innovator Awards recognize technology companies that have used original methods or technologies to deliver cutting-edge products and partner support. We congratulate this year's winners on their success, and applaud them for breaking away from traditional thinking to create completely new and unique channel opportunities."

CRN's 2011 Tech Innovators were nominated by their individual companies, with final selections made by the editors of CRN and the CRN Test Center. More than 250 nominations were reviewed. The Tech Innovator awards were presented on October 5th at the 2011 NexTI Conference held at the Doral Resort in Miami, Florida.

Expanded coverage of the 2011 Tech Innovators will be featured in the December issue of CRN Magazine and online at [ www.crn.com ].

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the expected demand for Riverbed's products and services, and statements relating to Riverbed's ability to meet the needs of distributed organizations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include our ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; our ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; the adoption rate of our products; our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our distribution partners; our ability to compete in our industry; fluctuations in demand, sales cycles and prices for our products and services; shortages or price fluctuations in our supply chain; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; general political, economic and market conditions and events; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. More information about these and other risks that may impact Riverbed's business are set forth in our Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on July 29, 2011. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Any future product, feature or related specification that may be referenced in this release are for information purposes only and are not commitments to deliver any technology or enhancement. Riverbed reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time.

About Riverbed
Riverbed delivers performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance. By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organization. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: [ RVBD ]) is available at [ www.riverbed.com ].

Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.

About UBM Channel
UBM Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, UBM Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. UBM Channel is a [ UBM ] company. To learn more about UBM Channel, visit us at [ www.ubmchannel.com ].

About UBM plc
UBM plc is a leading global business media company. We inform markets and bring the world's buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print and provide them with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 6,000 staff in more than 30 countries is organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to [ www.ubm.com ].