Applications traffic management appliance supplier Riverbed Technology Inc has cut partnership deals with Check Point Software and Websense to offer WAN optimisation and security technology combined as a single package.
The agreement with Check Point is intended to help companies protect and safeguard networks at remote and branch offices using the complementary capabilities of the two companies’ technologies. “Customers can deploy virtual appliances, such as Security Gateway R70, directly on Riverbed Steelhead appliances,” the companies explained in a statement.
Likewise, the Websense Web Security offering will become available on the Riverbed Services Platform, which is a virtualised data services platform and a feature of its Steelhead appliance.
“Organisations can consolidate WAN and web security deployments, making their IT infrastructure faster, less expensive, and more secure” it is being claimed.
Websense will install seamlessly on the RSP to enable what is described as a ‘serverless’ deployment at remote offices, with the option of centralised reporting and policy management through the Websense V10000 secure Web gateway appliance installed in the datacentre.
This combination would allow content to be inspected in real-time with Riverbed optimising the network traffic from the branch to the datacentre.
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Rivals to the companies have said it does not do justice to the job of delivering web security and WAN optimisation, simultaneously.
Nigel Hawthorn, EMEA marketing VP for Blue Coat System said, “There’s no real integration. You can’t make WAN optimisation decisions based on Websense categorisation or authentication. You also have two management interfaces with Riverbed and Websense.”
He argued that Blue Coat achieves the same with shared information, shared policies managed through a single management interface.
Riverbed maintains that, “Unlike competitive offerings that promise strong application acceleration and security but don’t deliver convincingly on either front, the Websense and Riverbed integrated solution offers best-in-class security and application acceleration.”
There will be a choice to deploy the combination as an appliance, software or as a SaaS option, the company also noted.
