Steelhead Mobile Product Overview
Steelhead Mobile can give mobile workers LAN-like access to corporate files and applications no matter where they are, anywhere in the world. With a simple software package installed transparently on their laptops or desktops, all of the powerful benefits of wide area data services are available to the end-user.
Steelhead Mobile works by interacting directly with any Steelhead appliance to optimize applications the same way in which two Steelhead devices would work together. At least one Steelhead Mobile Controller (SMC) is required to manage Steelhead Mobile licensing.
Steelhead Mobile Performance
Riverbed takes a multi-tiered approach to optimization to address the problems of bandwidth, latency and application protocol inefficiencies through a unified solution. Steelhead Mobile, running on the Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS™), utilizes industry-leading data streamlining and transport streamlining to provide data reduction, compression and transport protocol optimization. With RiOS, organisations can reduce traffic on the wide area network (WAN) by as much as 95% and transport layer roundtrips by up to 98%, allowing organizations to successfully deliver faster application performance while avoiding bandwidth saturation.
In recent customer deployments, Steelhead Mobile has delivered the following results for some of the applications most important to business:
- Accelerates Windows file sharing up to 95x with up to a 99 percent reduction in bandwidth utilization
- Improves Microsoft Exchange email attachment transmission up to 54x and reduces traffic by up to 97 percent
- Improves web-based application performance
- Speeds TCP-based application performance over a wide variety of wired and wireless networks
Steelhead Mobile Deployment Requirements
A Steelhead Mobile deployment requires that software be deployed on the user's laptop or desktop PC and that a Steelhead Mobile Controller (SMC) and Steelhead appliance be deployed in the data centre.
Components for Riverbed’s Mobile WDS Solution
Steelhead Mobile software
- Deployed on a laptop or desktop PC
- Users don’t configure anything
- Runs in ‘invisible’ or ‘visible’ mode
- Reduces bandwidth needs
- Optimizes protocol inefficiencies
- Requires Steelhead appliance in the data center
Steelhead Mobile controller (SMC)
- Offers powerful centralized management and reporting for Mobile software
- Deployed in the data center
- Simplifies deployment
- Enables detailed reporting
- Handles licensing – includes an initial 30 concurrent licences
- Supports up to 2,000 Steelhead Mobile Clients
- Concurrent active Mobile clients
- Required component
- Clusters for scale
Steelhead Appliance
- Deployed in data center
- Any model
- RiOS 4.x required
- Communicates directly with Steelhead Mobile
Choosing Steelhead Mobile Software Vs Steelhead Appliance for the Branch?
Steelhead Mobile Software:
- Best for workers on the move
- Offices where workers come and go
- Useful for Small offices
- Individual Data Store
- Requires software on the client machine
Steelhead Appliance:
- Appliances are easy to deploy and manage
- Dedicated appliance – doesn’t use endpoint resources, performs slightly better
- Shared data store is more efficient
- More features for performance, scalability
- Enables easy path for office growth and upgrades
Availability
Steelhead Mobile is available through a concurrent licensing model. The initial Steelhead Mobile investment includes the purchase of an SMC which includes 30 Steelhead Mobile concurrent user licenses. Customers can purchase additional licenses at the same time or add them later. Because of the concurrent licensing approach, enterprises can deploy Steelhead Mobile software to all laptops with no additional cost. Riverbed estimates that organizations will require one license per every three to five mobile workers. The price per mobile worker will vary due to the volume of licenses purchased, or the percentage of concurrent users in an organization.
- Download a copy of the Gartner Magic Quadrant Report
- Download a copy of the Riverbed Mobile Software Product Brief
For more information and or to arrange a trial of Riverbed, please contact Teneo on 0118 983 8600, or at info@teneo.co.uk.