Image Gallery: Riverbed Partner Summit

Riverbed’s top partners gathered in Santa Barbara, California, for celebration, education and relaxation. The company held the Riverbed Partner Summit, April 25-27, at the Bacara Resort and Spa next to the ocean.

Executives spent a lot of time explaining how Riverbed’s acquisition of Wi-Fi provider Xirrus will impact the networking industry. The San Francisco-based Riverbed predicts that its M&A activity will help it win the SDN battle with Cisco.

Read our recap of Wednesday keynotes after you’ve scrolled through our gallery.

Riverbed CEO Jerry Kennelly gave the first speech during Wednesday’s keynote. He touted Riverbed’s acquisitions of Oceda, Aternity and Xirrus and took several digs at Cisco’s iWAN solution. Riverbed is competing with Cisco in SD-WAN. 

Read our recap of the keynotes.

Approximately 120 of Riverbed’s top partners attended the summit. Channel Chief Karl Meulema told Channel Partners that Riverbed has been pushing and re-evaluating partner commitment over the last two years; he says 80 percent of its revenue comes through 101 partners.

The Wednesday morning keynote featured executives from Riverbed’s various business units. The units include SteelConnect, Riverbed’s SD-WAN offering; SteelHead, the company’s WAN optimization solution; and SteelCentral, a performance monitoring solution. Breakout sessions followed.

Channel Chief Karl Meulema emceed the morning session, introducing speakers and adding his own commentary. Meulema took over the reins of Riverbed’s partner program about two years ago and significantly upped the company’s expectations for partners. This, he told Channel Partners, was due to Riverbed’s shift from product-based selling, which requires less investment in training.

Check out the Q&A he did with us last year.

Read more about what Riverbed has to say about digital marketing.

Attendees ate dinner, drank adult beverages and networked while a band played and dancers did their thing.

A band kept the atmosphere lively Wednesday night.