Riverbed Technology has made a name for itself in the WAN optimization space by offering products that help resellers build the best networks for their customers. Now the company is providing even further visibility and management of the network through updates to its Cascade network performance manager and Riverbed Optimization Solution (RiOS), which powers its Steelhead appliances.

To hear Riverbed say it, an optimized network doesn’t focus solely on data traffic; today’s network also includes IP communications and video traffic, not to mention virtual desktop infrastructures – all of which can wreak havoc on a network’s quality of service.

“Having the right visibility addresses the pain points that a lot of customers are facing,” Nik Rouda, director of Solutions and Vertical Marketing at Riverbed. “It gives them a greater understanding of their environments; it enables analytics and troubleshooting; it helps them control and prioritize the right types of applications and services in their IT infrastructure. Really, it’s all about optimizing that environment to do more with what they have.”

Cascade 9.0 includes a new view to enable c-level executives their own look into the network, featuring a condensed interface that provides a high-level overview of how their networks are running. “Executive decision-makers didn’t have enough insight into what was happening in their applications. They needed condensed essential information without a lot of noise (unnecessary information),” Rouda said. “The dashboard is the mechanism by which we can provide the information, and they can see in real time how their network is doing in performance metrics for any location.”

The new version also features a service-level dashboard that provides an at-a-glance status of critical services and applications with the ability to drill down to the location, application and user level for better visibility and control, according to Riverbed.

RiOS 6.5, meanwhile, features the ability for companies to fine-tune their IT performance by optimizing all types of network traffic, thereby ensuring QoS levels. The latest version of RiOS includes:

– Riverbed AppFlow Classification Engine – Classifies multiple types of network traffic, including rich media and Web-based business applications to provide the most accurate, efficient and flexible method of application visibility.

– Latency-aware QoS – Uses the Hierarchical Fair Service Curves algorithm to identify and classify those applications running over the network that are more sensitive to latency than others, such as VoIP or video.

– Templated Scalable Management – Simplifies provisioning QoS into three templated steps using the Riverbed Central Management Console.

Rouda noted many of the new features were the direct result of partner requests.

“Our technology helps customers optimize their networks by giving them visibility and control,” he said. “We received a lot of feedback from our partners who were looking to justify the technology to their customers. We increased the visibility, and now, with the  control aspect, we feel we’ve over-delivered.”

Both RiOS 6.5 and Cascade will be available by the end of the first quarter.

Sign up for The VAR Guy’s Weekly Newsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Follow The VAR Guy via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Follow experts at VARtweet. Read The VAR Guy’s editorial disclosures here.