Riverbed integrates cloud-ready Stingray Traffic Manager Software with vFabric application director

INDUSTRY

Riverbed Technology this week announced the integration of Riverbed Stingray Traffic Manager, its software and virtual application delivery controller (ADC), with VMware vFabric Application Director, a hybrid cloud application provisioning solution.

This solution combines Stingray Traffic Manager software application acceleration capability with VMware vFabric Application Director automation to allow customers to create application blueprints that can be used to provision and scale multi-tier applications, faster and smarter in a hybrid cloud environment. These application blueprints can use application delivery features of Stingray Traffic Manager software for a higher level of application portability across cloud services and repeatable deployments of selected applications with standard deployment settings.

Application development and portability are evolving and can become more complex as companies continue to move to the cloud. The need for real-time updates of application functionality changes frequently in scale, and user demand for constant availability and reliability place new pressure on application architects. These challenges are time consuming and can be costly for an enterprise deploying and updating its applications in the cloud. Stingray Traffic Manager software provides enterprises with a solution to accelerate, automate, provision, and scale their clouds cost effectively.

“Though cloud computing provides enterprises with many benefits, the need to instantly meet user demands can prove challenging for application architects,” said Rohit Mehra, director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure at IDC. “Solutions for these challenges must match the nature of the cloud itself – they must be innovative and flexible. The merging of acceleration and automation capabilities is invaluable for organisations seeking to quickly and cost-efficiently deploy and provide high-performing applications.”

VMware vFabric Application Director, a cloud application provisioning solution for hybrid clouds, simplifies creating application deployment topologies that are truly portable across private, public, and hybrid cloud environments through the use of application deployment blueprints.

With the integration of Stingray Traffic Manager software with vFabric Application Director, application architects within IT organisations can now easily—with a drag and drop interface—choose to accelerate and load balance their enterprise applications in the cloud. The solution is available on VMware Cloud Application Management Marketplace. The marketplace allows VMware partners, customers, and end user communities to develop and publish application blueprints that are truly portable across clouds. This gives application and infrastructure teams the flexibility, freedom of choice and a collaborative environment for implementing a forward looking IT strategy for cloud application delivery into cloud.

“VMware vFabric™ Application Director™ is a cloud-ready solution that delivers deployment efficiency and agility, accelerates time to market, reduces costs, and leverages existing investments,” said Ramin Sayar, vice president and general manager, Virtualisation and Cloud Management at VMware. “With cloud environments becoming more pervasive, customers must have flexible, easy-to-use solutions that can be quickly integrated into highly dynamic virtual and cloud infrastructures. The integration of Stingray Traffic Manager software with vFabric Application Director fits with our solution to accelerate, automate, and scale applications in the cloud.”

Riverbed will also leverage other product vendors in VMware’s Cloud Applications Management Marketplace to expand the solution. The first collaboration is with Zend, a provider of software and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications in the cloud. This collaboration has yielded a blueprint for Magento E-Commerce store on a clustered high availability Zend server fronted by Riverbed. Customers who need high performing PHP applications in the cloud would be able to use new blueprints by Riverbed and Zend that can save them significant application development time and resources.

Designed for the cloud, the Riverbed ADC solution is a comprehensive layer seven software ADC that can be deployed seamlessly in private, public, and hybrid clouds. Stingray Traffic Manager software offers simple scripting, easy user interface-based configuration management, and robust application programming interface (APIs) that enable the solution to be managed as an application and provisioned like a service. This makes it better suited than a hardware load balancer to accelerate multi-tier applications in a virtual or cloud environment.

“As applications move to the cloud and become more dynamic, performance solutions must keep pace with how they are changing,” said Apurva Davé, vice president of products, Stingray Business Unit at Riverbed. “The Stingray Traffic Manager software was designed with the cloud in mind, and its ability to accelerate applications is unrivaled. Riverbed and VMware have a longstanding history that enables better-performing IT for enterprises. Integrating Stingray Traffic Manager software and vFabric Application Director™ is an important progression for application architects and enterprises operating in the cloud, as this collaboration will enable faster and easier deployments of highly-optimised applications.”