architecture positioning riverbed - · pdf filecompany profile riverbed positioning why cisco...

Company Profile

Riverbed Positioning

Why Cisco

Comparison

Architecture Positioning

Infrastructure Positioning

Service & Support

Solution

RiverbedPiranha Program — May 2011Partner Version

Cisco Confidential—For Cisco Use Only


Why Cisco

Comparison



Service & Support

Solution

Company Profile

Piranha Program | © 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential—For Cisco Use Only. 31

Riverbed Sales Strategy: Allow LAN like performance over WANs through industry leading innovation and products

Revenue: $552M (FY2010)

Gross Margins: 76%

Profit: $419.1M (FY2010)

Product/Service Revenue Split: Product: 68.7%/Services: 31.3%

Financial Strategy: Invest conservatively in small acquisitions and tune existing/ new products towards cloud market/DC to broaden addressable markets

Core Products/Technology: WAN Optimization software and appliances

Portfolio Breadth: Limited to WAN Optimization

Channels Strategy: WAN Optimization: 90+% indirect

Riverbed Company Profile

Product PortfolioWAN Optimization (Primary Revenue Source)

Riverbed Steelhead platform, Steelhead soft client, and software www.riverbed.com

WAN Optimization Market Share (Source: Infonetics)

2007 2008 2009 2010

Cisco Not Reported 23% 25% 23%

Riverbed Not Reported 23% 26% 29%

Products Offered

Company Profile

Comparison



Service & Support

Solution

Why Cisco



Riverbed Positioning Cisco AssertionRiverbed Scales Where WAAS Cannot: Riverbed claims that their Steelhead platforms can out scale Cisco WAAS due to its flexible caching design

Response: Cisco WAAS uses a superior peer-to-peer caching design – allowing it to flexibly outscale Riverbed and is optimized to offer better throughput and sustainability

Riverbed Is Easier to Deploy: Riverbed claims that Steelhead is easier to install and configure than WAAS due to Cisco’s dependency on WCCP

Response: While Cisco WAAS has basically the same process for deployment as Steelhead – it leverages WCCP allowing reduced operating costs and downtime compared to Steelhead

Riverbed Is the Industry Leader: Riverbed claims they lead the industry

Response: To reduce complexity – there needs to be some level of integration amongst various products. Riverbed has no integration between products

Riverbed - Positioning

Company Profile


Comparison



Service & Support

Solution

Why Cisco


Why Cisco

Borderless Network Architecture for unmatched functionality: Riverbed is simply a limited point product vendor

Cisco Unified Compute for scale and deployment flexibility: Riverbed does not sell nor enable its partners to offer a unified compute solution similar to Cisco’s

Advanced Services reduce implementation risk: Riverbed has limited advanced services options compared to Cisco

Best Practices in Competitive Engagements

Lead with Cisco’s Borderless Networks Architecture – Riverbed does not have an architecture sell for the enterprise

Emphasize Cisco best-of-breed positioning with WAAS. - Superior technology and performance

Create opportunities to engage with the customers for building relationships, educate and out position Riverbed

Expect Riverbed to aggressively price proposals – Educate customer on short comings of Riverbed products and solutions

Leverage competitive material on SMO competitive portal at wwwin.cisco.com/competitive

wwwin.cisco.com/competitive

Company Profile


Why Cisco



Service & Support

Solution

Comparison


Riverbed – Comparison

Why Not Riverbed Questions to Ask CustomersBusiness Reasons Riverbed is a point product company – no data center

diversity

Shrinking differentiation over competition

WAN Optimization moving towards being an application on a virtual machine – which plays well into Cisco WAAS on UCS

Riverbed TCO arguments cannot be associated with TCO savings across whole infrastructure like Cisco

Business Questions How much will it cost your staff to work with multiple

vendors and operate a multi-vendor network?

Why buy Riverbed - you get superior WAN optimization as part of an integrated Cisco solution?

What integration does Riverbed offer between appliances and VM’s on 3rd party servers?

What’s Riverbed TCO savings Vs. full Cisco solution?

Solution and Architecture Reasons Point Product – no integration with infrastructure devices or

solution management

Selling a WAN Optimization/Routing solution w/ partner Vyatta – not an integrated solution nor a true, full-featured L3 router

Riverbed Steelhead WAN Optimization architecture does not support video traffic transmission

Solution and Architecture Questions How does Riverbed integrate with 3rd party network

infrastructures and management platform?

How well does the Vyatta router scale? Does it have integrated management with Riverbed?

Why can’t Riverbed suport video streams? When will they?

Technology/Product Reasons Riverbed Steelhead based on monolithic architecture

resulting in a single point of failure. Heavy loads can crash SPORT task

Steelhead fails to accurately and consistently report optimization performance and statistics information

Steelhead transparentcy feature design results in lost performance under certain situations

Technology/Product Questions How will Riverbed affect branch services when Steelhead

may crash due to peak loads?

How trustworthy is Riverbed statistic reporting? How will customer plan capacity if information is questionable?

Why is Riverbed not transparent? How does this impact customer security posture?

Company Profile


Why Cisco

Comparison


Service & Support

Solution




Element Cisco Differentiators Riverbed WeaknessBorderless Networks

A medianet ready borderless network ensures that your network not only delivers a high-quality video experience but also help ensure that your network is ready for chznging bandwidth demands

Cisco Telepresence performance is assured with BN Cisco EnergyWise delivers energy efficiency and savings to IT and

facilities Integrated into the network, EnergyWise, along with its

Orchestrator console, controls and monitors power for a wide variety of devices

Riverbed only supplies a point product solution to WAN Optimization, which does not support transport of video traffic streams

No energy management features Riverbed does offer a mobile

version of its Steelhead WAN Optimization solution – but otherwise offers no collaboration features

Data Center and Virtualization

Unified enterprise switching, storage, computing and cloud service solutions

An Architectural Framework for the “Evolving Data Center”: Cisco Data Center Business Advantage represents an architectural framework for connecting technology innovation to business innovation. It is the foundation of the Dynamic Networked Organization

Innovate Quickly and Efficiently: Cisco Data Center Business Advantage represents a fundamental shift in the role of IT into a driver of business innovation. Businesses can create services faster, become more agile, and take advantage of new revenue streams and business opportunities. Cisco Data Center Business Advantage increases efficiency and profitability by reducing capital, operating expenses and complexity. It also transforms how a business approaches its market and how IT supports and aligns with the business, to help enable new and innovative business models

Keep Control of Your Data Center Architecture: The Cisco Data Center Business Advantage architectural framework is delivered as a portfolio of technologies and systems that can be adapted to meet organizational needs. Customers can adopt the framework in an incremental and granular fashion to control when and how they implement data center innovations. This allows them to easily evolve and adapt the data center to keep pace with changing organizational needs

No offering

Company Profile


Why Cisco

Comparison


Service & Support

Solution




Element Cisco Differentiators Riverbed Weakness

Be Free to Choose: Data Center Business Advantage preserves the customers ability to work with other industry leaders to solve a particular IT or business problem. Because Data Center Business Advantage is built around an ecosystem-centric framework and open solution stacks, customers can easily work with your existing data center vendors and Cisco’s industry-leading community of development, design, and deployment partners

Collaboration Unified enterprise communications (VoIP), conferencing, instant messaging, email and collaboration solutions

Any to Any: We uniquely enable people to work together naturally anywhere, on any device, with any content

- Cisco lets people use the devices they have today [Apple, Android, RIM, latest tablets], safely

- Cisco integrates TelePresence with a laptop WebEx conference with a smartphone audio call, simply, so everyone has the best meeting possible

- With Cisco collaboration solutions, people can work with individuals in other companies, using video, unified communications and presence as if they were inside a single company

- Cisco keeps costs low and flexibility high through cloud deployment models and standards, vendor and platform interoperability

Video Everywhere: Video is an essential part of effective, natural collaboration. Only Cisco provides the breadth of applications and endpoints to make pervasive video a reality

- Cisco made voice over the network the standard for business. We are doing the same for video

- Only Cisco has the broadest suite of video endpoints to integrate video into the fabric of how we work

- Only Cisco has a business video architecture [medianet] for scale, speed and reliability

- Cisco is driving a new wave of video experiences that change the way we communicate, collaborate, and enjoy entertainment - in the home, at work, and on the go

No offering

Company Profile


Why Cisco

Comparison


Service & Support

Solution




Element Cisco Differentiators Riverbed Weakness New Collaborative Workspace: Cisco is converging social, mobile,

video, and unified communications capabilities, to shape the new collaboration experience

- Advancement in collaboration is influenced by the rapid changes in the consumer market

- No other company empowers individual collaboration style as well as Cisco with the broadest choice of how to communicate based on preference, location and device

- Cisco makes work personal again, using a network-based approach to quickly locate the most relevant experts and information and cut through information overload

- Unlike others, Cisco provides deep integration with existing software and hardware infrastructure so IT doesn’t have to rip and replace

- In this new, more connected world, no other company offers a network-based approach to keep organizations safe because the network provides greater security and policy management control

Cloud Collaboration: When it comes to deploying collaboration, one size does not fit all

Only Cisco provides the combination of: A broad set of collaboration applications including voice, video,

web and customer care Flexible deployment models across private, public and hybrid

clouds Virtualized applications AND desktop clients

Company Profile


Why Cisco

Comparison


Service & Support

Solution




Element Cisco Differentiators Riverbed WeaknessRouting Full featured enterprise routing for campus, branch

offices and WAN Integration of routing platforms with security, switching,

WLAN, and WAAS

Riverbed allows Vyatta’s open source routing software to run on its Riverbed Services Platform (RSP) VM-based application environment. RSP is underpowered - comprimising Vyatta router performance and stability

Switching Full featured enterprise switching for campus, distribution access and branch office deployments

Integration of switching platforms with security, WLAN and routing

Riverbed offers no switching capabilities

Security Enterprise firewall, content security, email security, VPN, user policy establishment and control (TrustSec)

Identity Services Engine for integrated wired and wireless identity, access control, and management platform (Positron)

Riverbed does not offer security features on its platforms. Steelhead’s flawed transparency feature affects security posture of traffic traversing the device

WLAN Advanced RF features across a family of 11n APs delivering Enterprise-Class RF performance, reliability and lower TCO

WCS 8.0 with unified wired/wireless provisioning, management, monitoring and troubleshooting for borderless user services (Lumos)

WLAN controller on Cisco Services Ready Engine provides zero-touch deployment and centralized management for wireless service rollout in the branch offices

Riverbed offers no WLAN capabilities

WAAS Full featured enterprise WAAS with integration into branch office ISR platforms

Riverbed offers a family of WAN Optimization point products that cannot be effectively integrated into another vendors network infrastructure and associated management platform

Company Profile


Why Cisco

Comparison



Solution

Service & Support


Service & Support

What to Do Next?

Riverbed Services and Support Are Weak Compared to Cisco

Riverbed’s services staff is limited when compared to Cisco’s and spread very thin geographically

Riverbed doesn’t operate parts-repair facilities in all major geographies it sells in - significant delays in replacing bad hardware possible

Cisco’s services address Borderless Networks at an architectural level; Riverbed’s services do so only at a technology level

Cisco’s optimization services have no peer and include extensive smart network analytics; Riverbed offers nothing of the kind

Cisco’s on-line support tools are so powerful they resolve 80% of network issues; Riverbed reports no similar metric. Why not?

Cisco outscored all competitors when Gartner recently asked customers to rate their vendors’ professional services

Cisco consistently ranks first when surveyed customers to rate vendors’ technical support; what top rankings can Riverbed cite?

J.D. Power has certified Cisco fives times for its “outstanding” technical service experience but has never done so for Riverbed

Riverbed offers no proactive technical support; Cisco provides SMARTnet Total Care, Smart Care and Smart Call Home

Company Profile


Why Cisco

Comparison



Service & Support

Solution

© 2011 Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates. Cisco and the Cisco Logo are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco’s trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1007R) C96-666105-00 05/11

10

Solution

Why Cisco Services Why Not Riverbed Services Why It MattersDeep Borderless Networking Expertise: Cisco’s services bring deep, industry-leading expertise to wireless, security, routing/switching and rich media (medianet)

Riverbed’s network expertise is limited WAN Optimization and security

Cisco’s expertise addresses all Borderless Networks Architecture technologies to deliver a complete service solution for customers. Riverbed only addresses a small fraction of customer needs

Smart Professional Services: Cisco’s Network Optimization Service comes with smart analytics that use intuitive graphics to monitor compliance with industry best practices

Nothing in Riverbed’s or its partners’ portfolios of professional even begins to compare with the rich functionality and business value of Cisco’s smart network analytics

The smart analytics in Cisco’s Network Optimization Service give customers a simple means to boost operational excellence, mitigate risks, cut cost and complexity, and benchmark their policy compliance

Cisco Innovation: Cisco has led innovation Application Acceleration and WAN Optimization for several years. Cisco has consistently innovated and delivered technology and products that provide the best mix of performance, value, industry leadership to our customers backed with the best support services in the industry

Riverbed’s WAN Optimization platform has done well in part to their aggressive marketing initiatives, however Riverbed’s service and support is limited and a frequent contention point with customers

Cisco WAAS platform was designed to provide the optimal experience for remote workers who must access enterprise application across the WAN . Focusing on this has resulted in WAAS being a top rated product both with industry analysts and customers. Riverbed’s limited WAN Optimization product and support can result in critical outages when problems arise

Quality Leadership: Cisco ranked first in service and support when 684 customers rated their suppliers in the 2010 version of CIO Insight magazine’s annual Vendor Value survey. Cisco’s services also ranked first in a recent customer survey by Infonetics

No customer ratings of technical or advanced services by vendor-neutral third parties ever mention Riverbed as topping or even challenging Cisco in quality and effectiveness of support

To achieve their full potential, Borderless Networks need effective enablement and support by services that range from planning to optimization. Customers can rest assured that they can gain the necessary services breadth, quality and effectiveness from Cisco. The same is untrue of Riverbed

architecture positioning riverbed - · pdf filecompany profile riverbed positioning why cisco...

Documents