Riverbed, a network performance company, is offering a new inbound quality of service (QoS) feature as part of its Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS). RiOS powers Riverhead’s Steelhead appliances and ensures the performance of business applications across direct-to-Internet and meshed wide area networks (WANs). The addition of QoS gives latency sensitive applications prioritization and bandwidth.
While some enterprises rely solely on application traffic from a central data center, many organizations are now deploying hybrid networks using both low cost Internet breakout links that divert web traffic away from higher cost private networks, as well as fully-meshed MPLS connectivity to enable the direct flow traffic between branches.††In these cases, the control point for QoS has shifted from the data center to the front door of individual sites. In a meshed network, it is difficult to prevent a destination branch site from being overwhelmed by traffic from multiple senders using solutions that offer only outbound QoS.†Inbound QoS gives organizations the level of control needed over all incoming traffic to the network to guarantee stable bandwidth for key applications with predictable levels of performance.
Inbound QoS is a critical performance feature for companies that use public cloud services, such as SaaS, or unified communications applications, like VoIP or video. The capabilities from Riverbed use a combination of proprietary classification methods, configuration, and scheduling techniques to allocate bandwidths and prioritize latency-sensitive applications.
For more information, download Riverbed’s QoS whitepaper or visit Riverbed.
