Riverbed Technology announced the availability of solutions developed in collaboration with VMware that can provide a reliable and consistent desktop virtualization end user experience in those organizations that deploy VMware Horizon View 5.2.

The partnership between Riverbed and VMware has resulted in the support of multiple Riverbed performance solutions with VMware Horizon View deployments, including certification of Riverbed Granite with VMware Horizon View, to provide acceleration, control and management into virtualized desktop initiatives.

Organizations that deploy VMware Horizon View with Riverbed performance solutions are able to achieve a more automated, flexible, scalable, and high performing VDI environment. As a result, organizations that seek to further extend the virtual edge to create a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) are able to reduce complexity while increasing efficiency and deliver the performance end users need.

News Highlights:

- Delivering on the technology preview announced in August 2012, Riverbed Granite has achieved VMware Ready status with VMware Horizon View 5.2, enabling high performance remote and branch office virtual desktop deployments and ensuring VMware Global Support Services (GSS) support for customers who use the combined solution. Granite allows organizations to overcome the challenges of wide area networks (WAN)s, such as limited bandwidth, latency, and unforeseeable outages when delivering virtual desktops to remote locations. In conjunction with the VMware View Branch Office Desktop (BOD) and Business Process Desktop (BPD) solutions, Granite delivers a high quality Horizon View user desktop experience while preserving consolidation and control in the data center.

- Riverbed offers a QoS solution for PCoIP that delivers fine-grained control of Horizon View virtual desktop traffic. The combination of WAN optimization and the ability to prioritize PCoIP at a granular level along with other traffic that traverses the same WAN helps organizations achieve the appropriate balance between desktop virtualization and business applications.

- New Riverbed Stingray Traffic Manager integration with Horizon View provides acceleration, business continuity, fine-grained application-level control and high availability for end-users that require constant access to desktops, applications and data from any device or location. Stingray Traffic Manager offers Global Load Balancing (GLB), secure socket layer (SSL) Offload and Riverbed Stingray TrafficScript, a programming language used to create rules to address problems including security vulnerabilities, application bugs, or application incompatibilities.

- Released in Oct 2012, Cascade 10.0 delivers the needed network performance management within Horizon View environments, giving organizations the critical ability to pinpoint, understand, and troubleshoot in VDI environments. Cascade 10.0 provides visibility of the PCoIP protocol for actions such as screen refresh, print and type. These details are critical for troubleshooting and optimizing the usage and performance of interactive applications in Horizon View environments.

“By deepening our partnership with VMware, we give enterprises the ability to provide end users a seamless experience when accessing their desktop, applications and data regardless of location. Simultaneously, we are enabling enterprises to benefit from greater control and flexibility in distributed organizations,” said Venugopal Pai, VP Global Alliances and Business Development.

“The strategic partnership with Riverbed enables organizations to benefit from greater optimization and visibility in VMware Horizon View environments including Branch Office Desktop (BOD) and Business Process Desktop (BPD) deployments. The comprehensive suite of Riverbed performance solutions combined with VMware Horizon View gives end users the reliable experience they come to expect while helping provide enterprises with a way to reduce complexity, achieve greater cost savings and manage IT more efficiently,” said Parag Patel, VP Global Strategic Alliances, VMware.