© 2016 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved.

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 Solution Brief

 

Riverbed solutions for:

Amazon Web Services  

   Fifty-seven percent of enterprises have already moved some workloads to Amazon Web Services (AWS)1. Riverbed is helping remove barriers so they can move even faster.

Challenge Although enterprises are rapidly migrating workloads to the cloud, most enterprises (68 percent) still run less than a fifth of their application portfolios in the cloud2. Factors limiting cloud migration include:

Concerns about data security: Eighty-six percent of companies still cite security as an important concern when migrating workloads to IaaS3.

Lack of financial control over cloud usage and costs: While public clouds like AWS promise significant cost savings, it is difficult to predict the full cost of cloud services. According to recent survey reports, 66 percent of IT professionals find it challenging to track cloud consumption for cost allocations3.

Application performance issues due to infrastructure constraints: In a highly distributed enterprise, public clouds face the same performance limitations as traditional WANs: bandwidth constraints, latency, and competition for finite resources. As a result, the end-user experience for newly deployed or existing

cloud applications suffers, and the time it takes to complete a business transaction may increase, sometimes dramatically.

No visibility into end-user experience: Similar to the previous challenge, as IT loses visibility into the cloud, it becomes increasingly difficult to monitor how well applications are performing for end users. IT often relies on user complaints, which leads to greater frustration and lower productivity.

Difficulty resolving application performance issues: When IT does detect performance problems, finding root causes in AWS or another IaaS provider’s environment can be more of a challenge than ever. Does the problem stem from the user’s computing device, the network, or is it in the application itself? Even though the application is running in the cloud, IT is still responsible for detecting and resolving the issues before business productivity or revenue are impacted.

Barriers to migrating storage to the cloud: Enterprises would like to move storage out of Remote Office/Branch Office environments into cloud storage-as-a-service offerings like Amazon S3 in order to reduce cost, increase data security, and improve business continuity. However, they struggle to do so because many applications are designed to use local storage.

 

 

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Solution The Riverbed® Application Performance Platform™ empowers enterprises to better harness the power and

scalability of Amazon Web Services by providing unparalleled visibility, intelligent optimization, and simplified control over hybrid applications and networks.

Figure 1 Performance Visibility into AWS Applications Used Worldwide

Unparalleled Visibility

Riverbed’s application performance control center provides end-user experience, infrastructure, application, and network monitoring for a holistic view of application performance in AWS and other public clouds.

• Automatically map all application dependencies before migration starts to streamline the planning phase and move workloads with greater confidence.

• Test key transactions using predictive analysis and modeling techniques to determine where infrastructure bottlenecks may occur, and leverage this data to improve post-migration performance.

• Decrease mean time to resolution (MTTR) when troubleshooting performance issues by up to 80%, reducing support tickets and cutting technical costs tied to migrating and supporting applications running in AWS.

• Monitor the end-user experience down to the code and transaction level and understand where users

are accessing apps to better measure cloud service consumption for more precise budgeting and better cost control.

• Create user-specific performance dashboards to provide operational transparency to business users and key stakeholders.

Intelligent Optimization Riverbed’s app-defined WAN platform optimizes the delivery of cloud-based applications and data across the entire enterprise – from private data centers, out to branch offices and other remote locations, and to and from cloud.

• Speed up migrations to AWS and other IaaS providers by streamlining data transfers and eliminating network congestion.

• Reduce bandwidth consumption by 95% during and after cloud migrations and avoid costly bandwidth upgrades.

 

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• Make applications running in AWS 100x faster for better end-user experiences and more productive employees.

• Expand performance-monitoring capabilities for WAN-optimized applications deployed using AWS.

• Accelerate WAN optimization deployment by installing Riverbed Discovery Agents on AWS compute servers.

Simplified Control Riverbed solutions allow IT leaders to better control the flow of apps and data within the enterprise architecture – including in the cloud – enhancing overall security postures without compromising performance.

• Monitor for potential network intrusions and unauthorized traffic patterns and become alerted to and report on security policy violations.

• Develop and maintain an on-going, real-time inventory of network assets, know which applications are running in AWS, and understand when and where employees are leveraging non-sanctioned cloud services.

• Control whether cloud apps are backhauled to the corporate data center or use direct-to-Internet connections in accordance with best practice security procedures.

• Allocate consumption of network resources using integrated quality of service (QoS) with business-intent path selection, and send cloud apps over the optimal, most cost-effective network path.

• Enhance workflows that track compliance to PCI, NIST, and other policies and conduct threat modeling for common attacks such as DDoS, DNS amplification, and more.

Faster Adoption of Cloud Storage Riverbed’s hyper-converged edge platform allows enterprises to migrate storage from Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) to cloud storage seamlessly by providing a service connecting an on-premises software appliance with cloud-based storage – without impacting the application’s performance.

• Eliminate local backup and compute infrastructure from ROBO locations.

• Store data securely in the cloud instead of in more vulnerable ROBO locations or backup media.

• Continue to operate ROBOs, even when the WAN is down.

• Restore ROBOs immediately from the cloud, even in the event of a catastrophic facility (data center or ROBO) failure.

Performance Expertise from Professional Services Enterprises worldwide rely on Riverbed Professional Services (RPS) when moving critical applications to the cloud and enhancing their performance.

• Craft migration plans based on live traffic, not outdated diagrams, with readiness assessments that combine application discovery, dependency mapping, and predictive analysis to minimize risks and bring more reliability to migration projects.

Figure 2: Riverbed Optimization for AWS  

 

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• Resolve issues as they surface during and after the migration with monitoring and troubleshooting services that swiftly detect and fix problems.

• Continually fine-tune the performance of applications delivered through AWS and optimize the end-user experience with ongoing performance assessments.

Outcomes Organizations that utilize Riverbed solutions to support their AWS deployments experience these benefits:

1. Reduced CAPEX: Decrease network and storage costs, remove unnecessary branch infrastructure, and consolidate remote applications and data to improve the utilization of IT infrastructure.

2. Reduced OPEX: Decrease management costs, including help desk support expenses, while accelerating the rollout of new branch services, disaster recovery operations, and the adoption of lower-cost Internet links; reduce costs for branch infrastructure management and maintenance.

3. Enhanced User Productivity: Improve workforce collaboration by delivering faster applications –

anytime, anywhere, and across any device type – and minimize downtime by significantly reducing MTTR when issues arise.

4. Enhanced Data Security: Remove data from the ROBO and secure it in the cloud, mitigating risk.

5. Increased Business Productivity: Keep up with the pace of business by accelerating application deployments and migrations to AWS, prioritizing the delivery of critical apps to maintain user experience and employee productivity, and improving business continuity and disaster recovery processes.

Learn More Running applications in Amazon Web Services delivers compelling value propositions to businesses, but only if IT addresses certain challenges such as infrastructure constraints, unreliable performance, and security concerns. Riverbed increases enterprise agility by helping companies move workloads to AWS and other IaaS provider environments faster while controlling costs, improving and optimizing the performance of cloud apps, and protecting and securing critical business data. Learn more at www.riverbed.com/solutions.

Footnotes:

1. RightScale, “2015 State of the Cloud Survey,” Jan. 2015 2. Ibid 3. Riverbed, “Amazon Web Services re:Invent Survey Report,” Dec. 2014 4. Cloud Cruiser, “Survey Points to Challenges with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud Consumption Cost Controls and Allocations,” Oct. 5, 2015

About Riverbed Riverbed, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue, is the leader in application performance infrastructure, delivering the most complete platform for the hybrid enterprise to ensure applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues can be proactively detected and resolved before impacting business performance. Riverbed enables hybrid enterprises to transform application performance into a competitive advantage by maximizing employee productivity and leveraging IT to create new forms of operational agility. Riverbed’s 26,000+ customers include 97% of the Fortune 100 and 98% of the Forbes Global 100. Learn more at riverbed.com.

©2016 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners. The trademarks and logos displayed herein may not be used without the prior written consent of Riverbed Technology or their respective owners. PM_AWS_US_010715