JwizBlog

After meeting with NetCelera in DEMO 2003 and installing two units in our two different branches, we loved their NetCelera WAN acceleration appliances over both Expand and Peribit cause Expand is a pain in the neck to install, and their support was not responsive at all, while Peribit is so expensive it's hard to justify its ROI to upper management. Although NetCelera outperforms both of them in compression, it's really the combination of performance, ease of installation and price that make up a good product.

The reviewer at InfoWorld seemed pretty impressed with the Steelhead.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/04/09/15TCriverbed_1.html

quote:
To say I was impressed with the Steelhead would be an understatement. I have tested other file caching systems, and none have come close to delivering the overall time reduction provided by this product. Furthermore, Steelhead is self-tuning and virtually maintenance free. A true appliance, this box is as close to a hands-off device as you will find.
:endquote

Oh, and here's another article on the Steelhead appliance.

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0426riverbed.html

It's kind of an overview, but it does give some more info about the general concept of how the Steelhead achieves the level of wan acceleration that it does.

I should also say that the Steelhead appliance does much more than just compression in the pursuit of wan acceleration. They also use "Transaction Acceleration" to decrease the effects of wan latency.