Riverbed builds on Whitewater platform

Riverbed Technology is expanding its Whitewater cloud storage platform.

The company said that it would be adding a number of new partners which will extend both hardware support and compatibility with cloud storage platforms.

Sitting between on-premise storage hardware and cloud computing platforms, the Whitewater appliance is designed to streamline, protect and manage data that flows between the enterprise network and the cloud.

The platform will be extended with the addition of support for storage platforms from EMC, CA Technologies and Quest Software. Riverbed Whitewater director of product marketing Eric Thacker told V3.co.uk that the updated Whitewater platform will support around 85 per cent of the backup tools on the market.

Thacker said that support for various platforms is important as the company looks to expand the appliance.

"People are excited about the cloud, but once they plan out folding it into their IT infrastructure, they see there are a number of challenges," he said.

"We made Whitewater to be a drop-in solution for existing infrastructures."

Also expanding the platform will be the addition of a new cloud storage service for Whitewater. The appliance will now support cloud storage services from Nirvanix, adding to a lineup that already includes Amazon Web Services, AT&T Storage as a Service and EMC Atmos.

Nirvanix vice president of marketing Steve Zivanic told V3.co.uk that the service will target large enterprises looking to share and back-up data as well as free up local storage hardware by migrating archived data into the cloud.

The service also helps customers avoid compliance worries by offering the choice of hosting data in one of seven global locations, including three locations in the EU.

"It is like putting a Ferrari front end in front of the enterprise cloud," Zivanic said of combining Whitewater and Nirvanix.

The updated Whitewater platform is currently available to users worldwide.