SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Jul 23, 2012) - [ Riverbed Technology ] (NASDAQ: [ RVBD ]), the performance company, today announced a new inbound quality of service (QoS) feature in its Riverbed® Optimization System (RiOS®), the software that powers the company's award-winning [ Steelhead® appliances ]. Organizations increasingly rely on direct-to-Internet and meshed wide area networks (WANs). Inbound QoS ensures the performance of business applications across these networks by shock absorbing the impact of applications such as video and voice, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and unified communication and collaboration (UCC), while at the same time giving latency sensitive applications the prioritization and bandwidth they need. The addition of inbound QoS to the existing advanced traffic classification and outbound QoS capabilities in RiOS delivers an elegant and seamless classification and control policy engine that ensures that business applications perform predictably in the face of new application delivery models and traffic types.

"Ensuring fair access for mission-critical applications during periods of congestion is a critical component of WAN optimization," said Joe Skorupa, VP Distinguished Analyst at Gartner. "As enterprises adopt an increasing number of dynamic browser-based applications and UCC applications and delivery mechanisms, they require bidirectional multi-point QoS to deliver application-specific assurances and greater performance across their entire infrastructure."

While some enterprises still rely solely on application traffic originating from a central data center, many organizations are now deploying hybrid networks using both low cost Internet breakout links that divert web traffic away from higher cost private networks, as well as fully-meshed MPLS connectivity to enable the direct flow traffic between branches. In these cases, the control point for QoS has shifted from the data center to the front door of individual sites. In a meshed network, it is difficult to prevent a destination branch site from being overwhelmed by traffic from multiple senders using solutions that offer only outbound QoS. Inbound QoS gives organizations the level of control needed over all incoming traffic to the network to guarantee stable bandwidth for key applications with predictable levels of performance.

Inbound QoS becomes a critical performance feature as public cloud services, such as SaaS, compete with recreational traffic such as Facebook and YouTube. Furthermore, UCC applications such as voice over IP (VoIP) and video that generate traffic directly between branch locations require large amounts of bandwidth and are extremely sensitive to latency. As business critical traffic traverses diverse networks and moves in and out of the cloud, data center and branch offices, the ability to set control policies that protect business-critical incoming traffic is paramount.

"We have remote offices around the world and are challenged with ensuring that our employees have adequate access to business-critical data and applications," said Michael Grumley, director of IT - Global, at Text100, a public relations company. "We have Steelhead appliances at each of our 23 offices to increase the performance of centralized business applications like SharePoint. However, increased bandwidth utilization from using digital and social media sites often disrupts the flow of our backend traffic. As we look to deploy technologies such as VoIP and video conferencing, it is critical that these applications are given priority over web and even more undesirable traffic."

Riverbed developed advanced QoS capabilities that use a combination of proprietary classification methods, simplified configuration and unique scheduling techniques to efficiently allocate minimum and maximum bandwidths and prioritize latency-sensitive applications for both incoming and outgoing traffic.

"By utilizing the Inbound QoS feature we now proactively prioritize the traffic that is most important to our business," Grumley said. "Our previous model required us to deploy a third party box in locations where we needed bandwidth control but found it too costly. Now we have WAN optimization and QoS in one appliance, which cuts down on our remote infrastructure and helps us save money. At the end of the day, we're able to boost employee productivity and increase our bottom line."

Advanced QoS Innovations Integrated with Market-Leading WAN Optimization
Organizations need to enhance the performance of applications that are sensitive to latency and packet loss, including business VoIP, video, and interactive Web applications. Market-leading Riverbed WAN optimization solutions intelligently use a combination of optimization techniques -- application, network and protocol optimization, deduplication and QoS -- to provide organizations the best level of performance. Additionally, organizations that use the Riverbed Central Management Console (CMC) can more easily and accurately deploy and centrally manage optimization and QoS for more control, stable use of bandwidth and greater levels of WAN efficiency.

"The addition of inbound QoS is a natural addition to RiOS to ensure the best and most predictable levels of performance for business critical applications such as public cloud services, voice and video," said John Martin, senior vice president of product management, at Riverbed. "By combining inbound and outbound QoS with market-leading WAN optimization technology, organizations now have greater control to ensure business critical applications perform reliably while providing better WAN efficiency. Our innovative approach to QoS reinforces the commitment from Riverbed to optimize all types of applications that enterprises care about now and in the future."

For more information about inbound QoS optimization from Riverbed, visit [ http://rvbd.ly/QoSwhitepaper ].

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Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the expected demand for Riverbed's products and services, statements regarding performance results of Riverbed solutions and customer cost savings following implementation of Riverbed solutions, including RiOS 7.0.1, that may suggest likely or certain outcomes, 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 April 30, 2012. 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.