Akamai and Riverbed to Accelerate Applications Over Hybrid Cloud Networks

LAS VEGAS, May 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- INTEROP Las Vegas-- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, and Riverbed Technology (NASDAQ: RVBD), the IT performance company, today announced their work on a joint offering designed to overcome the application performance bottlenecks facing enterprises that leverage public cloud services.

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Today's enterprises are increasingly adopting public cloud computing services to avoid costly infrastructure build out, and to bring efficiency to business models such as software as a service (SaaS).  As a result, business applications in the cloud, having once resided within the corporate network, are being accessed over an often unpredictable public Internet.  New solutions are required to overcome the performance, availability, scalability and security issues introduced by this hybrid network environment.  

"Enterprises are increasingly deploying a mix of both in-house and cloud-based applications," said Joe Skorupa, research vice president, data center transformation, at Gartner.  "As this shift to hybrid networks occurs, ensuring application performance and end-user productivity is critical, creating a need to integrate access to corporate applications, as well as SaaS, in a single pervasive framework."

Akamai and Riverbed® are announcing their intention to develop a joint application acceleration solution for hybrid cloud networks that leverages a combination of Internet optimization and wide area network (WAN) optimization.  The planned solution would be designed to accelerate cloud-based applications.

Akamai and Riverbed offerings are already used separately today by more than 13,000 organizations, including by Fortune 500 businesses worldwide.  Akamai's globally-distributed network of more than 90,000 servers deployed in the cloud provides route, protocol and application layer optimizations for the Internet, and serves roughly 30 percent of all Web traffic.  Riverbed has thousands of appliances deployed within enterprise networks providing network, application and storage optimizations for the WAN.

In creating a joint offering, Akamai and Riverbed intend to focus on technology integration designed to solve the new application performance challenges introduced by hybrid cloud networks.  Akamai Internet optimization software would be integrated within Riverbed Steelhead® appliances with the goal of extending Internet optimizations into enterprise networks, thereby extending Akamai's edge from close proximity to the data center to directly within the enterprise.

In addition, Riverbed WAN optimization software would be integrated within Akamai edge servers with the goal of extending WAN optimization into the public cloud, thereby extending Riverbed's edge from the data center to close proximity to cloud data centers.

"The rapid move to the cloud presents new opportunities for two industry leaders, Riverbed and Akamai, to create solutions for enterprises to simplify their extension to the cloud while leveraging the infrastructure they already have in place," said Eric Wolford, executive vice president of Marketing and Business Development, Riverbed. "Accelerating software as a service, for example, across a hybrid cloud environment helps businesses increase application adoption.  We believe that greater adoption means improved business results, operating and infrastructure savings, and user productivity."

"Akamai's highly-distributed architecture is close to any public cloud infrastructure and Riverbed Steelhead appliances stretch across thousands of enterprise IT networks from the data center to the branch office and mobile worker," said Willie Tejada, vice president, Application and Site Acceleration, Akamai.  "The alliance is focused on marrying best-in-class protocol optimizations for maximum acceleration and infrastructure offload.  Together, both companies expect to provide a seamless solution with quick time-to-value while leveraging each other's existing footprints."

The joint offering is expected to be available early in 2012.  Both companies invite existing and prospective customers to visit http://www.akamai.com/riverbed or http://www.riverbed.com/akamai to learn more about the strategic relationship. 

About Akamai

Akamai® provides market-leading, cloud-based services for optimizing Web and mobile content and applications, online HD video, and secure e-commerce.  Combining highly-distributed, energy-efficient computing with intelligent software, Akamai's global platform is transforming the cloud into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, transact and collaborate.  To learn how the world's leading enterprises are optimizing their business in the cloud, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter.

About Riverbed

Riverbed delivers performance for the globally connected enterprise. With Riverbed, enterprises can successfully and intelligently implement strategic initiatives such as virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, and disaster recovery without fear of compromising performance.  By giving enterprises the platform they need to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT, Riverbed helps enterprises to build a fast, fluid and dynamic IT architecture that aligns with the business needs of the organization. Additional information about Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is available at www.riverbed.com.

Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology, Inc.  All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners.

Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act

This release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai's management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the effects of any attempts to intentionally disrupt Akamai's services or network or Riverbed's services or products by hackers or others, the inability of Akamai and Riverbed technology or systems to operate together as expected or to continue to be interoperable, the failure of hybrid cloud networks to develop as expected, a failure of Akamai's network infrastructure, and other factors that are discussed in Akamai's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.

Riverbed Statement on Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the expected demand for Riverbed's products and services, statements of the plans, strategies and objectives of Riverbed management regarding future products and product plans, statements regarding the growth characteristics of, and customer demand relating to, the cloud market, statements regarding Riverbed's ability to grow the cloud market, statements regarding performance results of Riverbed solutions and customer cost savings following implementation of Riverbed solutions that may suggest likely or certain outcomes, and statements relating to Riverbed's ability to meet the needs of distributed organizations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they do not fully materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.  The risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include our ability to react to trends and challenges in our business and the markets in which we operate; our ability to anticipate market needs or develop new or enhanced products to meet those needs; the adoption rate of our products; our ability to establish and maintain successful relationships with our distribution partners; our ability to compete in our industry; fluctuations in demand, sales cycles and prices for our products and services; shortages or price fluctuations in our supply chain; our ability to protect our intellectual property rights; general political, economic and market conditions and events; and other risks and uncertainties described more fully in our documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission.  More information about these and other risks that may impact Riverbed's business are set forth in our Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on April 29, 2011.  All forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to us as of the date hereof, and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.  Any future product, feature or related specification that may be referenced in this release are for information purposes only and are not commitments to deliver any technology or enhancement. Riverbed reserves the right to modify future product plans at any time.

SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.