SD-WAN Solution : Riverbed Vs Silver-Peak

Today I am going to talk about the difference of the feature sets between SD-WAN solutions provided by Silver-Peak and Riverbed. Most of you know about these vendors in WAN optimization solution but they also come up with the SD-WAN solution having the competition with other vendors as well.




Apart from these vendors we have other vendors for which i will come up with the introduction of the solution with respect to their features and capabilities in SD-WAN market.

In this article I am going to talk about the feature set difference between Silver-Peak and Riverbed SD-WAN solutions. Let's talk about a brief of both solutions

Riverbed WAN Optimization and SDWAN 

The solution provided by Riverbed is mainly have the WAN optimization and SDWAN which is  tightly coupled solutions. SteelConnect Manger can orchestrate and manage both SteelHead CX series (WAN Op) and SteelConnect gateways (SD-WAN). They are targeting existing installed based of WAN OP customers.

Fig 1.1- Riverbed SD-WAN Solution

SteelConnect, with its centralized controller and policy descriptions, lets you manage worldwide network policy from a single console. Virtual access zones follow users throughout the organization, providing consistent connectivity while enforcing enterprise-wide data protection, password, and security policies. SteelConnect also provides detailed reporting of who is on the network at any given time, so you can prioritize usage and access.

• Agility: Quickly respond to the needs of your business with application-centric, business intent-based policies that are centrally managed and applied network-wide across all remote locations.
• Reduced Costs: Maximise the use of redundant and lower cost connectivity options with zero-touch provisioning & centralized management to reduce the cost of deploying and maintaining a hybrid WAN architecture.
• Security: Leverage secure transport network services & integrated firewall capabilities to ensure the secure delivery of all applications across your hybrid enterprise.  Securely identify and manage the performance of today’s modern and encrypted applications running over SSL, TLS and HTTPS.
• Reliability: Create a highly available WAN architecture that virtualises and dynamically leverages multiple links at remote locations.  Retain end-to-end visibility of network performance and end-user experience for troubleshooting and problem resolution.
• Performance: Deliver superior application performance to your business with the industry-leading WAN optimization solution from Riverbed.

Silver-Peak SD-WAN Solution

The solution for the Silver-Peak is similar as Silver-Peak is one of the another excellent vendor in the WAN optimization and ofcourse they are head to head with the Riverbed solution in the market. The main features they have the Unity Boost  and optional WAN optimization license / service for high latency links. They provides protocol-based TCP optimization with Data deduplication and have Integrated solution which is easy to deploy.

Fig 1.2- Silver-Peak SD-WAN Solution Architecture

Unity is a virtual WAN overlay that enables customers to deploy hybrid or all-broadband WANs using multiple types of connectivity, including MPLS, cable, DSL, LTE, etc. This virtual WAN architecture takes SD-WANs to a new level.

• Zero-Touch Provisioning - a plug-and-play deployment model that enables Unity EdgeConnect to be deployed at a branch office in seconds, automatically connecting with other Silver Peak instances in the data center, other branches, or in cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft Azure and VMware’s vCloud Air.
• Dynamic Path Control (DPC) - real-time traffic steering over any broadband or MPLS link based on company-defined business intent policies. In the event of an outage or brownout, DPC automatically fails-over to the secondary connection in about one second.
• WAN Hardening - data is secured edge-to-edge via 256-bit AES encrypted tunnels.  No unauthorised outside traffic is allowed to enter the branch. WAN hardening secures branch offices without the appliance sprawl and operating costs of deploying and managing dedicated firewalls.
• Path Conditioning - overcomes the adverse effects of dropped and out-of-order packets that are common with broadband Internet and MPLS connections.  Path Conditioning provides private-line-like performance over the public Internet.
• Cloud Intelligence - delivers real-time updates on the best performing path to reach hundreds of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications ensuring users connect to their applications in the fastest, most intelligent way available.

What the difference between both the solutions. So let's have the table to define the difference between the two solution. Click on the image to see it more clearly.

Fig 1.3- SD-WAN Riverbed Vs Silver-Peak Solutions

We will come up with the difference of other vendors as well for the SD-WAN solutions.