Virtualised data centres enable companies to use their servers and storage more effectively, generating a higher return on investment and reducing the pressure on their data centres, says application performance company Riverbed Technology Europe, Middle East and Africa senior director Nik Rouda.

Pressure on information technology (IT) infrastructure, specifically on data centres, is increasing continually, as companies rely more on new applications and more data is sent across networks, while businesses simultaneously reduce IT budgets to control expenses, he says.

“Demands on IT departments seem insurmountable. These departments must cut costs, increase application use and maintain high performance while building on existing data-centre infrastructure, all without compromising security.”

Meeting these demands will require IT depart- ments to use new technologies and techniques to change the way they use existing assets and infrastructure, Rouda avers.

“There are several ways companies can improve the performance of their IT infrastructure. Consolidating data centres is not always effective, as increased distance often reduces the speed at which applications can access data in the data centre, leading to slower experiences for distant users. This challenge and higher traffic across networks can be addressed through the use of wide-area network (Wan) optimisation,” he says.

Riverbed’s application-acceleration techniques, which can also be delivered as virtual appliances, enable companies to send data to distant operations and employees at higher speeds, which, in turn, enables users to have experiences similar to those of employees on site at the premises of the business’s headquarters.

Riverbed uses Wan optimisation techniques to accelerate the delivery of application data across a network, specifically data transfers over long distances. This also enables companies to reduce the number of data centres they use, as the centres do not have to be present in a region to deliver application data at a satisfactory speed and user experience, he explains.

This technique of performance improvement also enables satellite-connected sites to use available bandwidth more efficiently and overcome high latency. Further, the Riverbed Cascade family of products enables performance manage- ment and provides companies with end-to-end visibility of their networks and data centres, notes Rouda.

Riverbed can also provide its systems in a cloud format to companies or it can deploy these systems in a company’s internal environment to accelerate data traffic and data centre performance, he adds.

“We enhance virtualised data centres and desktops to improve the speed of our customers’ applications and servers.”

The network and data centre performance management systems developed by Riverbed also enable companies to reduce the need for expensive equipment at their remote sites; for example, engineers can use computer-aided design programs without the need for high- performance servers or storage on site.

“Further, a company can secure sensitive data generated at its remote sites – for example, mineralogical and geological data of mining companies – and bring the data back safely and securely to capture and analyse the data housed in the data centre to make robust and faster business decisions,” concludes Rouda.