Silver Peak Saves Riverbed Customers up to 86% with Software Upgrade Program

Offers Riverbed Steelhead Customers Immediate Relief from Impending Hardware Refresh

Singapore. May 23, 2013 – Silver Peak Systems, the leader in accelerating data over distance, today announced a software upgrade program for Riverbed Technology customers facing an impending Steelhead hardware refresh.  The upgrade program helps Riverbed Steelhead WAN optimization customers avoid the high cost of the vendor-imposed hardware refresh by upgrading to equivalent Silver Peak virtual software at a fraction of the price.

According to an April 2013 report by Baird Equity Research, “Riverbed management has cited a US$250 million install base of 20 series product that goes end-of-life early next year.  We see this as important product refresh opportunity for the company in its core market.”

According to the Riverbed website, Steelhead xx20 series products will become end-of-life early next year.  Customers with Steelhead models 520, 1020, 1520, 2020, 3020, 3520, 5520, 6020, and 6120 will be forced to upgrade to more expensive, newer Riverbed hardware products.  

Silver Peak offers Riverbed customers immediate and long-term relief by upgrading to Silver Peak VX virtual software products, which can provide up to 86% cost savings.


According to Dell’Oro Group’s Q4 2012 Data Center Appliance Report, the market for virtual WAN optimization will grow by 100% in 2013, while the overall market is only expected to grow by 6%.

Silver Peak leads the market in software-based virtual WAN optimization with the highest performance and most cost-effective products.  Customers can instantly evaluate Silver Peak software with free trial versions downloadable directly from the company’s marketplace.  Silver Peak customers optimize more traffic than Riverbed, scale to multi-gigabits-per-second (Gbps) in WAN capacity and can run the software on any hypervisor, including VMware vSphere, Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM.   Silver Peak also offers customers flexible pay-as-you-go and pay-as-you-grow pricing options.

“Riverbed has defined itself as a hardware company and they bank on customer refresh dollars to keep generating revenue,” said Rick Tinsley, CEO of Silver Peak.  “However, WAN optimization customers are increasingly aware of the advantages of software and are fed-up with the vendor-imposed hardware refresh cycle.  For the cost of Riverbed maintenance alone, Riverbed customers can own an equivalent Silver Peak software product with more features and higher performance.  And with Silver Peak WAN optimization software, you never need to face a forced hardware refresh again.”

In a recent product review conducted by the InfoWorld Test Center, Silver Peak was proven to pack “superior WAN optimization into a virtual machine.” The review concluded that regardless of the link speed and latency, the [Silver Peak] VX optimized WAN traffic as well as or better than a comparable physical chassis from Riverbed.  In the same review, Silver Peak software scored a perfect “10” for value.

To get more information and upgrade to Silver Peak VX virtual software, email info@silver-peak.com with the subject line “Riverbed Upgrade.”