Riverbed Technology rolled out Riverbed Optimization System (RiOS) 7.0, the software it uses to power its flagship Steelhead WAN optimization appliance line.

The latest release includes a number of additions, including direct integration with the company’s Skipware satellite networking protocol implementation. On top of that, Riverbed integrated its Cascade application-aware NPM solution into Steelhead to deliver on-demand, simplified remote-monitoring and troubleshooting.  The company says it’s the first vendor to deliver this level of integration between a WAN and NPM solution.

“With RiOS 7.0, Riverbed has extended that integration, allowing customers with Cascade Pilot to leverage Steelhead appliances in branch offices for on-demand packet capture and remote analysis without having to transfer huge packet capture files over the network. Now, IT administrators can detect and respond to application performance problems without expanding their hardware footprint.”

In addition to consolidating its ecosystem of networking solutions, Riverbed made several other enhancements to the software. It now supports HTTP Flash and Silverlight video splitting, in addition to IPv6. Furthermore, RiOS can now be used in virtual desktop infrastructure powered by either one of the popular platforms provided by Citrix, VMware or others to solve common issues, such as latency and bottlenecks.

The company rounded out v7 by adding support for Encrypted Lotus Notes traffic, the Kerberos authentication standard and Microsoft’s primary cloud services for the enterprise.

Riverbed’s VDI push with RiOS 7.0 and the expansion of remote admin capabilities marks the latest stride that the WAN optimization provider made towards the cloud-powered enterprise market.  Earlier this year it entered into a partnership with Akamai to develop a joint hybrid cloud application acceleration solution. It leverages the two companies’ technologies and the sheer size of the Akamai network to handle the burdensome amount of data companies must manage.