SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Aug 6, 2012) - Today, [ Riverbed Technology ] (NASDAQ: [ RVBD ]), the performance company, announced highlights from the fifth-annual SHARKFEST '12 event held at UC Berkeley, June 24-27. Conference attendees described SHARKFEST '12 as the most successful event to-date. The event featured keynotes by U.S. astronomer and author Cliff Stoll and Riverbed® Technical Director in the Office of the CTO Steve Riley, more than 45 breakout sessions on network and protocol analysis topics, and hands-on labs. Presentation slide decks and recordings from SHARKFEST '12 are available at [ http://sharkfest.wireshark.org/sharkfest.12/ ].

SHARKFEST is an annual gathering of the global community of [ Wireshark ] developers and users to share knowledge of and experiences with the world's most popular network protocol analyzer. With more than 750 contributing experts and authors globally, Wireshark is considered the de facto standard in the industry for troubleshooting, analysis, development, and education.

Keynotes on Cloud Computing and Creativity

• The day-one opening keynote by Stoll debunked the simplistic myth of cloud computing and focused on the enormous amount of network infrastructure and data transmission involved with the cloud.
• The day-two keynote "In the Cloud, Everything You Think You Know is Wrong" by Riley examined the cloud as a re-centralization of compute and storage and as a catalyst that will unleash wide scale changes in enterprise network infrastructure and spark new forms of technical creativity.

SHARKFEST and Wireshark Highlights

• SHARKFEST '12 provided a venue for core developers and experts to provide feedback on the future of Wireshark software project development; conveyed best practices for network security, management, troubleshooting, and optimization; and provided immersion training in network and protocol analysis.
• More than 280 users and developers from 17 countries attended SHARKFEST '12 with 65 percent of the participants repeat attendees.
• Three days prior to SHARKFEST '12, [ Wireshark v1.8 ] was released with support for more than 100 new protocols, including popular big data and cloud storage protocols (Hadoop Distributed File System-HDFS and Gluster FS), and more than 10,000 filter fields.

Opportunities to Experience Wireshark and Riverbed Cascade

• View presentation slide decks and listen to recordings from SHARKFEST '12 at [ http://sharkfest.wireshark.org/sharkfest.12/ ].
• IT professionals can visit the upcoming industry events in 2012 to learn more about Wireshark and Riverbed Cascade:
  • [ VMworld 2012 ], San Francisco, August 26-30
  • [ IT Roadmap Conference & Expo ]
    • Boston, August 9
    • San Jose, Calif., October 30
    • Washington, D.C., December 6
  • Wireshark Workshops: email [ sales_cascadepilot@riverbed.com ] for an invitation to attend a Wireshark workshop to learn the techniques for identifying performance and security issues on the network.
    • Cleveland, Ohio, August 22
    • Cincinnati, Ohio, August 23
    • Ottawa, Canada, September 11
    • Québec City, Canada, September 12
    • Boston, September 13
    • Hartford, Conn., September 22

Supporting Quote
"This was my first time attending a SHARKFEST conference after discovering Wireshark last year. I approached the conference with confidence from reviewing previous sessions hosted online, but was taken aback by the warmth, accessibility, and collaborative nature of the Wireshark packet capturing community. A memorable part of the conference was the after-hours collaboration with Wireshark experts -- when we shared stories of how we used the open source packet capture tool to solve problems on our respective networks. Since returning from SHARKFEST, I tripled the contents of my troubleshooting toolbox, and have already used newly learned skills and analysis techniques to improve the network at Mendel Biotechnology." -- Kayla Smith, network engineer, Mendel Biotechnology, Inc.

Additional Resources

• [ Wireshark Blog ]
• [ Riverbed Blog ]
  • [ "In the Cloud, Everything You Think You Know is Wrong" ]
• [ Facebook ]
• [ Twitter ] (@Riverbed)
• [ YouTube ]
  • [ "Chat with the Creator of Wireshark" ]
  • [ "Cascade Pilot Changed My Life" ]
  • [ "Wireshark in the Large Enterprise" ]

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.