My advice to new users considering Steelhead is to focus on its strengths, particularly in WAN optimization. If the primary requirement is monitoring tools like NTA, then SolarWinds might be a more suitable recommendation. It is about aligning the solution with the specific needs of the user, and in the context of WAN optimization, Steelhead is a strong choice. Overall, I would rate Steelhead as a six out of ten, mainly because it is on the expensive side.

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I rate Steelhead seven out of 10. Riverbed is not just for WAN optimization. They have a solution called NPM for monitoring network devices, like routers, switches, and firewalls. You can monitor your entire network from a single dashboard. Riverbed NPM is a powerful solution similar to SolarWinds.

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The solution is a non-premise one like the router. For the most part of the protocol, the solution is kept on-site. You need to have time to accelerate cloud-based applications like Office 356. We require a license from the Russian authorities.

The solution works for a remote user as well. We have customers with a mixed setup where they are not the only end users. They are major businesses with more than 100 branches.

The application’s sizing needs to be done well. They should have complete access to the applications that come under the particular bandwidth loss. They will also require a certificate of application.

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Riverbed Steelhead is a brilliant concept, and well executed appliance. It really does do it's job very well and worth the investment.

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Overall, I would rate Steelhead a nine out of ten. 

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I would advise others to do tests and make sure they really need the product before purchasing it because it is expensive.

I rateRiverbed Steelhead a seven out of ten.

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In addition to the effective optimization we get out of this solution it integrates directly with some Riverbed SteelCentral monitoring tools we own.

Check out software-defined WAN solutions as well before any hardware solution. SD WAN acceleration solutions have likely improved quite a bit in the last few years.

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I rate the solution nine out of 10. 

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We are a customer and an end-user. We don't have a business relationship with the company itself. 

We are still using the CX 5070 across our sites. We have one in the system.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been very pleased with the solution and its capabilities over the years. 

I would recommend the product to others.

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It is very good at optimizing WAN traffic and it has so many more features on top of that which help global enterprises monitor, identify and police traffic by application type, IP subnet, source, and/or destination.  Amazingly efficient tool to use when troubleshooting WAN issues..(customer complaints and more).

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No additional comments or advice regarding Riverbed Steelhead. The devices were great, and proved to be a very valuable asset to the company.

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I would rate Steelhead a nine out of ten because the product is very stable; it never fails. It does compression and application optimization very well. 

Riverbed can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud as well. We can deploy it in Amazon, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The solution is in the marketplace of every car provider and it also optimizes Office 365 traffic, since there's a partnership with Riverbed and Microsoft. We can deploy on-premise, we can deploy on IaaS or we can deploy on PaaS.

In the past, the internet links of the MPLS link were full capacity (one or two Mbps) and it was very expensive. Nowadays, the prices of the MPLS links are cheaper and the capacity is increased.

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Although I'm sure this is obvious to most it may not be to some when you make your initial purchase you need to buy at least two. The SteelCentral Controller is not strictly needed as all the units can be managed individually, but the more units you deploy, it becomes more difficult to maintain a standard configuration across devices. This is where the SCC comes in very handy.

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The SteelHead product is very good, easy to configure, however a home page which can be altered would enhance the gui 

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I would 100 percent advise others to implement this product. When potential customers ask us why they should buy SteelHead instead of just increasing their bandwidth from 10 Mbps to 20 Mbps, we tell them that doing so does not eliminate protocol chattiness. The reason behind this is that the TCP three-way handshake will happen at 10 Mbps and at 20 Mbps as well. If you have 20 applications in your environment and your users are accessing those applications, there is a lot of protocol chattiness going on. Upgrading bandwidth will not eliminate it. If you buy SteelHead, you can eliminate the protocol chattiness, and all the different kinds of handshaking. 

Every protocol is very chatty. CIFS, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, applications that are running on port 445, use a protocol that is very chatty as well.

Also, Riverbed recently started offering SD-WAN. The SteelConnect appliance delivers SD-WAN service and can easily provide routing, application visibility, security services, and WAN optimization. Riverbed has also started delivering a next-generation firewall which is completely an application firewall.

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Check your network requirements before deploying one of the Riverbed devices. CX255M is more than enough for most of the branch sites with 10-50 people.

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Please do some diligent research before purchasing the product. It is quite expensive but it is worth it in the long run. View full review »

Riverbed is great product and base functionality of these devices which is WAN optimization is handled by them in best and intelligent way.

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This product is far way ahead from its competitors.

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