Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 22 | Page 88

t cht lk collaboration. As we continue to evolve our mutual offerings to provide increased value with advanced solutions, we enable our mutual customers to push boundaries towards a digital-first business.” Seamless integration between Riverbed’s SteelConnect SD-WAN and Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN with local branch path steering for Microsoft Office 365 Through Riverbed’s SD-WAN solution SteelConnect, customers will now be able to automate local branch path steering for Microsoft Office 365 via conventional Internet broadband. By using the SteelConnect Manager policy engine and intuitive graphical interface, users can extend software-defined policies for steering traffic for selected applications or digital services, users or entire locations. SteelConnect Manager can also be used to connect to Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN, a global network backbone for managed site-to-site and branch-to-Azure connectivity. This solution is already having an impact with early adopter customers and partners. Sword Group, an international consulting, services and software enterprise is one Paul O’Farrell, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Infrastructure Business Unit at Riverbed 88 INTELLIGENTCIO company that is using the integration between Riverbed SteelConnect and Azure Virtual WAN. The announcement builds on Riverbed’s broader vision to enable unified connectivity and orchestration across the entire distributed network. Riverbed SteelConnect is the industry’s first and only SD-WAN product that provides unified connectivity and policy- based orchestration spanning the entire network – WAN LAN/WLAN, data centre and the cloud, with one-click connectivity and optimisation into Microsoft Azure. Earlier this year, Riverbed announced that SteelConnect supports Azure ExpressRoute with automated ‘single-click’ connectivity. SteelConnect also enables zero-touch provisioning, allowing an enterprise to set-up a global network and connect to the cloud in minutes and easy ongoing network management that provides the ability to make quick and easy network or business/ application policy changes. Riverbed SteelFusion announces support for Microsoft Hyper-V Riverbed SteelFusion is extending its offering for Microsoft Hyper-V customers, “ THROUGH RIVERBED’S SD- WAN SOLUTION STEELCONNECT, CUSTOMERS WILL NOW BE ABLE TO AUTOMATE LOCAL BRANCH PATH STEERING FOR MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 VIA CONVENTIONAL INTERNET BROADBAND. further expanding on its ability to provide enterprises with flexible and secure architectures, dramatically simplifying operations at the edge of the network. Enterprises and organisations who have selected Hyper-V as their hypervisor of choice will be able to leverage SteelFusion for distributed IT and fully realise its software- defined value, with the flexibility and agility to instantly deploy and centrally manage edge services, data and applications to any number of remote branches and sites. SteelFusion is an extensible services platform that uniquely converges an Intelligent Storage Cache, industry-leading WAN Optimization and industry-standard virtualisation into a streamlined and centrally-managed platform for edge IT. The solution replaces all traditional edge infrastructure and enables enterprises and organisations to modernise remote IT infrastructure and operations for the digital age, delivering unprecedented IT agility, data security and application performance while allowing the most data- sensitive organisations to meet compliance standards required for their industry. To date, enterprises and organisations across all industries have replaced older, more complex edge architectures with SteelFusion for a more modern approach to edge IT. n www.intelligentcio.com